


We Might Live Like Never Before

by JustLikeAPapercut



Series: Delicate things [1]
Category: Succession (TV 2018)
Genre: AU, F/M, Hurt/Comfort, Slow Burn, alternative universe, remember when Roman was supposed to be a dad?, slightly dented people, the kid had a name and everything
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-11
Updated: 2020-12-26
Packaged: 2021-03-07 21:34:57
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 13
Words: 104,638
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26944522
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/JustLikeAPapercut/pseuds/JustLikeAPapercut
Summary: His wife is dead but his daughter isn’t because Grace didn’t think to take their kid along on a drunken drive through a canyon road.
Relationships: Gerri Kellman/Roman "Romulus" Roy
Series: Delicate things [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2072925
Comments: 391
Kudos: 158





	1. Chapter 1

* * *

_we might live like never before_ _  
__when there's nothing to give_ _  
__well, how can we ask for more_

\- Damien Rice, "Delicate" _  
_

* * *

  
  


He’s in a meeting with a bunch of suits when the call comes in. 

His dad’s been talking about yanking him out of Films, back to Operations, and he’s shoved in a conference room with a bunch of people, Frank and Karl, maybe Gerri. He won’t remember much of it later, just that he’s texting when the call from Grace’s phone comes in and he sends it straight to voicemail. 

A phone call is the perfect excuse to get up and leave, bail out on all of this boring bullshit, but he’s getting tired of people never taking him seriously and he knows Grace is only calling to complain about something because she’s always angry now, the two of them just sniping back and forth like something out of a fucking fifties sitcom. He sends the second call to voicemail too, but then he worries that it’s something to do with Isla and he goes back, reading his phone’s transcription of the voicemail message. He squints at the shitty job the algorithm does because all it gets is “Calabasas” and “Pacific Shores Hospital,” putting his phone up to his ear now, even though Gerri or someone else is still talking. 

He listens to the message, the doctor’s stoic voice asking him to call, and then he’s walking out of the room and right to the elevator, bumping into people as he goes because he can’t be bothered to walk around them when some doctor with an unpronounceable last name is telling him that Grace was in a car accident. 

She’s dead by the time he gets to California. Was probably dead by the time the ambulance brought her into the hospital, but apparently they operated anyway, Isla sitting in a nanny’s lap until Roman gets there, and all he can think is thank God Isla wasn’t in the car. 

His wife is dead but his daughter isn’t because Grace didn’t think to take their kid along on a drunken drive through a canyon road. 

“Daddy,” Isla says as she clings to him. “When can I see Mommy?” And he doesn’t know what to say here. Fucking never? She can never see her mother again because she was a fucking idiot who got day drunk and probably day high, and then climbed behind the wheel of the Lamborghini Roadster that no one in their household even knows how to drive?

“Not right now,” he says instead, his voice cracking. “How ‘bout you just sit here with me for a while. Daddy needs some cuddles.” 

The funeral is in New York because everything in his life that isn’t dead is in New York and he never wants to set foot in the state of California again, no matter that Grace’s parents live there and they're pissed at him now. 

The ceremony is a shitshow, poser friends of Grace’s he’s never met crying their eyes out while Isla ducks her head into his body, burying her face as people sob around them, Roman making a to-do list in his head as he goes through the motions, sits twenty feet away from his wife’s closed casket. 

There’s a small gathering of people at his dad’s house afterward, mostly family but apparently some people from Waystar too, and that last part chafes, sandpaper against his skin. It’s bad enough that Ken keeps looking at him with big, sad eyes and Shiv doesn’t know how to talk to him, he doesn’t want Karl coming up and trying to fucking hug him. 

“You’ll get on with it,” Logan says to him. “People die.” And he shouldn’t have expected anything more here but somehow he did and it all feels fresh again, like he’s back in that hospital, a doctor carefully extending condolences because an apology might be construed as some kind of culpability for not saving his wife, no matter that a third of Grace’s head was gone. 

At some point Frank comes over to him, all teary eyed, and Roman bristles here because this is the last thing he needs, a parade of suits telling him how torn up they are just to score a few nonexistent brownie points with the old man. 

“I’m so sorry, son,” Frank says, his voice shaking, and Roman remembers now that the fourth or fifth time Frank got fired, it was because he wanted to spend more time with his first wife when she was dying. “I’m so sorry.” 

He doesn’t realize he’s crying until Frank hugs him. Holds him like a fucking little kid who fell down and skinned his knee, only it isn’t a skinned knee and both of their wives are apparently dead and Roman has no idea how to raise Isla alone, can’t even seem to get her in bed at the right time. 

When he pulls back from the hug, Gerri is hovering near them, her face impassive, and Roman feels abruptly self-conscious, like he just cried and wet his pants in the middle of class. He makes some horrible, tasteless joke, his face still hot and flushed. Locks himself in a bathroom for half an hour until Ken comes and finds him, handing him a beer. 

“Is this how you stay clean now?” Roman asks him after gulping down half the bottle. “You just watch other people booze it up? Some weirdo sexual surrogacy for addicts?”

“Sure,” Kendall says. Leans against the bathroom door. “Let’s go with that.” 

“I’m a widower,” Roman says, chuckling here and turning around to look in the mirror. “This is the face of a fucking widower.” 

He laughs until he cries, cries so hard that he makes himself vomit, Kendall throwing open the toilet lid just in time. 

. . . 

He closes on a brownstone on East 71st Street the week before his dad’s eightieth birthday. Gets himself in therapy again because Isla’s shrink has been making agitated noises about his own grief spilling over, which is ridiculous because he mostly walks around feeling numb. 

He has an actual panic attack after his dad’s stroke, goes full on loony tunes in the hospital, Shiv hovering behind him and trying to rub weird circles in his back until he yells at her to stop. But then someone gives him a Xanax or something and he no longer thinks he’s going to die, listening impassively as Shiv and Kendall argue about who the name on the paper should be. 

“I don’t love Gerri,” he hears Shiv say. “But I don’t hate Gerri.” 

“I’ll talk to her,” Roman volunteers. 

“Um,” Ken says. “Are you sure?” 

“She hates Shiv,” Roman points at his sister with his thumb, which may or may not be true. He's just pretty sure Gerri secretly hates everyone. “And you can’t even convince the mother of children to let you live in the house you paid for, so.” 

Really he just wants to be away from both of them and if talking to Gerri is his ticket out of this waiting room, he’ll fucking take it. 

“You alright?” Roman asks her, hopping up on the little coffee counter. 

“Not really,” Gerri says, sounding as shaky as he’s ever heard her. “This is where they brought Baird.” 

Shit, he forgot about Baird and Gerri having a dead husband. Does everyone in Waystar have a spouse that fucking died on them? 

“I’m sorry,” he says. “That’s shitty.” 

“I’m sorry too,” she says. “About Grace. I didn’t get to tell you that.” 

“Dad tells me that people die and I’ll get over it,” he says flippantly, kicking his legs like a child. “Speaking of my stroked out father, I’ve been sent here to finesse you into being the placeholder while he’s out cold.” He can’t bring himself to say anything that doesn’t make it sound temporary. Like this is just a passing thing and soon enough his dad will be up and about, shouting at people and hurling racial slurs. 

“No thanks,” she replies, not missing a beat. “I don’t really want the job that makes your brain explode.” 

“Yeah,” he says. “I figured you’d say that. You’re usually the smart one.” 

“Thank you?” Gerri says, sounding amused or something. “Though if this is your idea of convincing someone, I’m a bit concerned.” 

“Don’t worry,” he says, hopping down. “If he croaks, there'll be no shortage of companies wanting to hire the best whore in the whorehouse. You’ll be fine.”

“Did you even _try_?” Shiv demands, and Roman shrugs. 

“She doesn’t want the job that makes your brain explode. Sorry. Find another sucker.” 

It ends up being Ken because it was always going to be Ken, Gerri disappearing with him immediately, Ken coming back in looking so pale, he’d swear Gerri just drained all of Ken’s blood. Which is possible.

“What’d you do,” he asks Gerri, “tell him there’s no Santa Claus?” She’s typing on her phone and she doesn’t look up when he talks, just keeps pecking away. 

“Sorry,” she says, “this particular whore is busy. You’ll have to bother someone else.” 

He probably deserved that, but it doesn’t mean he has to stand here while she’s a bitch to him. 

He leaves the hospital because one of his assistants is ten minutes late picking Isla up from therapy and now his kid is freaking out, apparently won’t stop crying, refuses to get in the car with the other assistant who is now absolutely fired. 

“You’re just leaving?” Ken asks, Gerri watching the exchange with that blank expression of hers. 

“My kid needs me,” Roman says, waving over his shoulder. “And you never listen to the shit I say, so maybe just talk to Gerri like you would anyway.” 

Isla’s calmed down by the time he gets to her, and that feels like a different kind of shitty. Like she can’t even rely on him to make things better so she has to self-sooth, work through her own freakouts even though she’s only six and her mom is dead, maybe soon enough her grandpa, too. 

His bedroom is technically the one at the end of a long hall but he hasn’t slept in yet, always crashes in the guest bedroom that’s next to Isla’s, both of their doors open in case she needs him in the night. Listens for the sound of her breathing even though he can never hear it, the walls of the brownstone too thick and the rooms too large, the heat kicking on intermittently as he debates whether to get up and check on her. 

“Did you have a bad dream?” Isla asks as he hovers in her doorway. 

“Yep,” he lies because that’s better than telling his daughter that he hasn’t slept in weeks. 

“Me too,” she says. “But it was just a dream. Mommy says dreams can’t hurt us.”

“Sure can’t,” he says. Feels himself tearing up. “Go back to sleep okay? I’ll be right here.” 

He cues up old videos of Grace on his phone when he gets back into bed. Replays the one with her laughing again and again, streams the white hot pain through his headphones each time he hits repeat. 

. . .

He zones out for most of Thanksgiving dinner, unsure what’s going on when his dad starts getting mad at Iverson for basically being Iverson, fucking fidgety and weird just like Roman was at that age. But then Isla is right there beside her cousin, that pissed off little voice she uses when someone forgets to cut the crust of her sandwich or puts pickles on her plate, and Roman’s head snaps up because he didn’t even notice her leaving her seat. 

He sees it in slow motion when his dad’s hand shoots out toward Isla, maybe to slap her across the face or shake her by her clothes, the way he always manhandled Roman and sometimes Connor. Never Shiv. Rarely Kendall. It’s like a fucking out of body experience. He doesn’t feel like he’s moving, still feels rooted to the back of his fucking uncomfortable chair, but then he blinks and he’s standing, his father’s arm gripped in his hand at an unnatural angle, the sound of Isla sobbing behind him as people shout his name, Kendall out of his seat too, shouting at Logan, maybe trying to pull them apart. 

He’s bundled Isla up and is on his way out when he sees Kendall and Gerri alone out on the balcony, but he doesn’t give a shit what they’re plotting. He just wants to get his daughter the fuck out of here and never come back again, Marcia trailing him now, trying to get a word in, but fuck that and fuck her.

“I’m sorry,” he tells Isla in the car, her eyes still big and wet. “I’m so sorry. You never have to see him again, okay?” 

By the time they’re halfway home she’s playing a game on his cell phone, his text message chime going off every minute or two. 

“Uncle Ken says to call,” Isla reports, her face screwing up as she reads the scrolling words. 

“Maybe after you beat that level,” Roman says. “You gotta really crush it so we can have some victory ice cream.” 

Ken wants a meeting the next day, but they can’t do it at Waystar and Roman doesn’t want to leave Isla again, makes everyone come to the brownstone. 

“This is nice,” Frank says, looking around. “I like it.” 

“Thanks,” Roman says. Hands him a drink.

He still hates that Frank is always hovering over his shoulder at work, a cockblock he can never quite get past, but he doesn’t hate anyone as much as he hates his father now, and Frank is maybe kind of alright. 

Isla’s playing a noisy video game in the family room in the back, but she pauses it to come out now. Shows everyone the tutu she’s still wearing but was supposed to take off well over an hour ago. 

“Will you change into your other clothes please, like I asked you before you turned on your game?” Isla sighs dramatically in response, dragging Gerri by the hand to show her something in the other room, and Roman lets her carry on because Gerri looks so clearly put off now, a pinched smile stapled to her face.

Ken shows up late, ever ready to make an entrance, gives Roman the pitch about ousting their dad. 

“Sold,” Roman interrupts him. “No need to blow me, I’m already there.” Gerri cringes at that and Roman smirks at her. Grabs some apples off the kitchen island they’re all standing around now, beginning to juggle as they talk. “You think you can get the votes?” 

“We’re working on it,” Kendall says. “We could use your help.” 

“People sure do like me,” Roman says, and he sees Gerri smirk, just for a second here. “You positive you aren’t making a mistake, tipping your hand to Lady Macbeth over there?” 

“Roman,” Frank warns. “Easy there.” 

“Let him finish,” Gerri breezes, calm as you please, even though she’s got to be seething now. 

“Well you’re very good at dodging fire at the last minute,” Roman tells her, still juggling away. “And that’s cool and all, I’ve always respected that you’re a stone cold killer bitch, but if you do that this time it’s Ken who’ll get sniped and well, I would take great exception to that.” 

“Are you telling me you have no reservations of your own about sitting in that room with your father? That you won’t shit your little pants when he all but dares you to knife him in the chest?” Her eyes are flinty now, chin titled in a challenge, and he thinks he likes her better this way. No polite smiles hiding the shit she thinks about him. 

“Oh, my cowardice is well documented,” Roman replies, catching all three of the apples in one hand. “But if you think I won’t happily gut the bastard after what happened at Thanksgiving, you’re not nearly as good at your job as I thought.” 

Gerri’s face goes slack with something when he says that, maybe guilt. He doesn’t know but he relishes the victory, however small it is. 

It’s past dinner time now, and Isla comes running in, tutu still on, hollering about spaghetti. 

“Yes,” Roman sighs. “It’s spaghetti night. You wanna grab the instructions Lucia left, see if you can read them to me while I heat it up?” 

“Sorry we’re messing up spaghetti time,” Ken says, hugging Isla in that awkward as fuck way he has. “We’ll head out.”

“No!” Isla shrieks, Roman smirking as Frank winces. “Spaghetti night! Everyone stays for spaghetti night!” 

The declaration makes everyone so jittery and uncomfortable, of course Roman leans into it. 

“What a nice idea, Isla. I’m sure Uncle Kendall and our friends would love to join us for dinner.” Gerri looks murderous here but in that polite, smiling way she has, and Ken only nods at the rest of them, like he’s trying to make it an order but doesn’t know how. And they’re trying to make the spineless wonder the CEO, Jesus fucking Christ. 

Frank helps set the table, which is fucking ridiculous, and Gerri stands stoically typing away on her phone, which is pretty on par. But then dinner is reheated and served, Isla getting more food in her lap than anything, the tutu probably ruined, which is annoying because Roman isn’t even sure where they buy those and he hasn’t replaced either of the assistants he just fired. 

“I think it’s supposed to go in your mouth,” he hears Gerri say to Isla while he and Frank are talking, and when he looks over Isla is giggling, more spaghetti falling out of her mouth as Gerri hands her the napkin from her own lap. 

It’s a small thing but it makes him smile, his daughter still giggling away as Gerri halfheartedly picks at her own food, checking the screen of her phone like she’s glancing at the time, probably counting down the minutes until she can escape. 

. . . 

Logan loses the vote, no matter that Ken couldn’t manage to make it into the room on time, his tweaky voice drifting in on a conference call. 

There’s a lot of cursing and threats, his dad calling him a prick over and over again while Roman’s leg shakes, but he stays steady and so do Frank and Gerri, and after that everything gets easier and also surprisingly hard. 

He starts bringing Isla to the office after school because he gets fidgety whenever she’s out of his sight all day, hates the idea of only making it home for bedtime. He hasn’t hired a new nanny, can’t stand the thought of one taking care of his kid everyday, though he used to employ four of them. There were three employees in the California house when Grace died and no one thought to stop her from piling in the car drunk, probably wouldn’t have stopped from taking Isla with her if she'd decided to, and his blood goes cold whenever he thinks about that. All those people he paid money to year after year, and all they cared about was keeping their jobs and their bi-coastal lifestyles.

No one at Waystar seems thrilled about Isla being at the office, not even Kendall, but Roman doesn’t care. Too fucking bad if they can’t swear as much as they’d like between the hours of three and eight. 

“I don’t think we can use this,” Gerri says, coming into his office. She never knocks and he can’t decide if he likes that or hates it. “Did you even read the numbers Frank sent you?” 

“Of course I read the numbers,” Roman pulls a face. “I’m not a moron.” 

Gerri’s expression says she’s not convinced. 

“Hey,” Kendall says, appearing in the doorway. “Dude, can I borrow you on something?” 

“Sure,” Roman says. “Gerri can stay with Isla.” 

He really doesn’t mean in any kind of way, it’s just that Gerri’s there and Isla gets weird about being alone, and for some strange reason Isla seems to like her. But the next day Frank pulls him aside after a meeting, drags him into his office like it’s day one and he’s still in charge of grading Roman’s homework. 

“Did you make Head Counsel watch your kid yesterday?” Frank asks him. 

“What?” Roman pulls back. “No. She was just there and Kendall needed me.” 

“Roman,” Frank sighs, shaking his head. 

“I didn’t leave her with a baby and a pile of diapers. I just asked her to fucking stay in the room she was already in. Maybe check her emails while my kid finished her math homework.” 

“You owe her an apology,” Frank says. “Please do it today.”

“Fuck that,” Roman says. “Are you fucking kidding me?” 

“You do not want that woman pissed off,” Frank says. “She’s too valuable and frankly, if you give her anymore cause she won’t hesitate to knife you in the ribs.” 

“I literally asked her to sit with my kid for fifteen minutes!” 

He gets the same speech from Kendall, albeit far less convincingly, no less so as Ken was literally standing in the room when it happened and apparently had no reservations about it at the time. 

Gerri turns up at his office later in the day, right before he has to leave to go pick up Isla, and he isn’t sure if this choreographed or she really needs something from him. He doesn’t particularly care either way. 

“I’m told I owe you an apology,” he says, and he sees the irritation flash across her face before she smooths it away. “So I’m sorry, I guess, for leaving my daughter in a chair across from you. But I’d like it noted it was done without any thought given to you having a uterus or whatever the fuck. She just seems to like you and most of the time you strike me as a not horrible person, but I’ll make sure to adjust my expectations from now on.” 

“We need to discuss the Vaulter acquisition,” Gerri announces, after a long pause that he interprets as her swallowing down all the shitty things she wants to say to him but can’t, since he’s technically her boss. 

“I’m going to pick up Isla,” he says, standing up. “It’ll have to wait for forty-five minutes.” 

She checks her phone, grimacing. “I’m in with Karl in an hour and this can’t wait. I’ll go with you.” 

“No fucking thanks,” Roman says. “I can only imagine the tongue lashing I’ll get for hauling your French twist all over Manhattan to pick up my kid. You’ll have to catch me later.” 

“Can you stop being obstinate for five minutes,” she says, gritting her teeth. “This really is important.” 

“Fine,” he shrugs. Feels better now that she’s just directly insulting him. “But I want it on the record that this was your idea.” 

Traffic is horrible, he fidgets the whole time, worrying he’s going to be late and Isla will freak out before he gets there. 

“Did you hear a word I just said?” Gerri asks, staring down her glasses at him. 

“The Vaulter numbers are bullshit,” Roman summarizes, annoyed now. “I’ve been saying that since Ken was only half hard for this acquisition. Big deal. What’s your point?” 

“We need to get Kendall to back off of this. You’re probably the only one he’ll listen to, so it needs to be you talking him down.”

“Have you even tried talking to him?” he asks, looking around to see if traffic’s so bad he just hop out, walk the rest of the way. “Or are you just dancing around him, giving him hand jobs, the way you all did with our dad?” 

“Excuse me?”

“I get it,” Roman waves her off. “The old man was terrifying and he never listened to anyone but his own dictatorial ego. But Ken isn’t like that and neither am I, so please just drop all the cloak and dagger bullshit. Tell Ken what you actually think. And tell me when you’re pissed off, so I don’t have to hear it from fucking Frank.” 

He hopes out at the next intersection, surprised when he makes it ten feet and Gerri’s right beside him, matching his stride. 

“We’re trying, you know. This isn’t easy for any of us.” 

“I know that,” he says. “The old king is gone and you’re stuck with the two limp dick princes none of you really wanted. But unlike our fucking dad, Ken and I know who makes the trains run on time. You and Frank are both safe, Gerri.” 

“Thank you,” she says, sounding surprised. “I appreciate that.” 

“Needle-dick Karl should be fucking worried, but don’t tell him.” Even if she does, it doesn’t matter. It might even be fun to watch Karl twist on the line for a while before he dies. 

“I won’t,” she says. Sounds like maybe she even laughs a little. 

Isla barrels into him, almost knocking him down, and he chats with one of the teachers - the hot one he used to flirt with but now only asks about upcoming events and how Isla’s doing. 

“Thanks,” he says, when they finish up. “Tell Ms. Lilja thank you, Isla.” 

“Thank you!” Isla shouts, Gerri shifting on her feet next to him, and by the time they’re outside the driver has caught up with them, the car idling right in front of the entrance. 

“Gerri and I have to do some work,” Roman says. “You want to use my phone, maybe text Auntie Shiv about that dead rat you saw in the street on the way to school?” 

Gerri’s mouth twitches here and Roman makes a funny face at Isla, handing her the phone he doesn’t use for work. 

“What if we talk to Kendall together?” Gerri asks him. 

“Pincer movement?” 

“And here I thought that time at the military academy was wasted.” 

Isla sets up shop on his conference table like always, Roman working straight through until he has something brought in for dinner, going over Isla’s homework as she streaks food all over the glass top of the table. 

“I like Gerri,” Isla declares. “She’s got pretty hair.” 

“She does have pretty hair,” Roman allows. No reason not to humor her here. “Hey rabbit, you missed a section on the back here. Let’s fill it out after dinner, okay?” 

He has Isla slung over his shoulder when it’s time to trudge home. Tries to hang back for the next one when he sees Gerri stepping onto the elevator, trying to give her some space, but she spots him with Isla and makes a show of holding the elevator door.

“Is this the new game?” he asks her. “Trying to out nice each other?” 

“I could get behind that,” she admits. “It’s better than the old one. Much less exhausting.” 

“Fair,” he sighs. Feels dead on his feet, his eyes closing for a moment. 

“Daddy thinks you have pretty hair,” Isla announces, and Roman slips her off his shoulder here. 

The little traitor can walk on her own two legs for that. 

“Goodnight,” Roman says, ducking out of the elevator as fast as he can. Has no desire to look back and see whatever put off expression Gerri’s wearing. 

“Goodnight!” Isla shouts, arms flailing over her head, and Roman snatches her up again. Carries her on his hip like the duffel bag he theoretically takes to the gym he never goes to anymore. 

. . .

He and Gerri corner Ken about Vaulter, but it backfires, Ken doubling down, snapping a little at Gerri. 

“I’m the one with the problem,” Roman says. “Head Counsel is just chasing down the shit I asked her to, so if you want to be mad at someone, be mad at me.”

“This acquisition is happening,” Ken tells them. “Your job is to make it happen.”

Roman lets Gerri pivot around, be the good guy, and after Ken gets in a few more potshots at his expense, Roman leaves to take Isla to her dance class. 

Maybe he was a fucking idiot for thinking things with Ken would be different but he did and they aren’t and that fucking sucks. Everything fucking sucks and he’s so tired, he just wants to lie down for a year, be woken up when everything is better. 

He hired back one of the personal assistants he fired because Isla’s therapist keeps harping on the need for consistency and he knows he keeps changing things on her; her home, her schedule, her maternal grandparents being so far away. He should really do something about that last one, try to mend fences or whatever, but he doesn’t think he has any mending in him right now. Drops Isla off with the assistant while he goes to his own therapist.

“Thank you,” Gerri says the next morning. “For that maneuvering with Kendall yesterday.”

“It was my dumbass idea,” he shrugs. 

It’s a Sunday and they’re both in jeans, waiting for something to come through from Vaulter’s lawyers, neither of them fucking thrilled about it. 

“Where’s Isla?”

“At a friend’s house,” he says. “I might have to duck out without much notice if she freaks out over there.”

“Does that happen often?” Her voice sounds soft, concerned, and he wonders if this is the way she sounds with her own family. 

“Often enough,” he says. He feels like a big enough failure as a father already, doesn’t need to go elaborating on it to Gerri Kellman.

They get maybe an hour’s worth of work done before he gets the call he was dreading, already packing it in. 

“I don’t mean to be unfeeling,” Gerri says, sounding frustrated, “but we really need to finish this.”

“My kid’s mother is dead,” he says flatly. “You want to come over to the house later to get this done, that’s fine. But she’s not leaving my side the rest of the day.”

Isla’s stopped crying by the time he picks her up but she starts up again when she sees him, and he wonders now if he did the wrong thing by swooping in to grab her. Maybe she was better off being left to calm down, motor through. He doesn’t know because his own parents were complete shit, borderline sociopathic, and he’s never lost a wife before, feels like he’s just treading water day in, day out.

Gerri shows up at the house a little after three o’clock, Roman standing in the doorway, looking like an idiot because he forgot he invited her, never thought she would come anyway.

“We don’t have to do this here,” he rushes to say, worried now about her being uncomfortable.

“I worked at your father’s house all the time,” she says, taking off her coat. 

“Yeah, that comparison makes it way fucking better.”

He pours them both a drink because there has to be a perk of working at home, leads her down the hall to the large office he almost never uses. 

“Gerri!” Isla shrieks, materializing in the doorway. 

“Gerri’s here to give Daddy some homework,” he warns her. “But if you let us get everything done, you can show her all your mermaid dolls.”

“Would now be a good time to note that I hate dolls?” Gerri asks, eyebrows high on her forehead once Isla’s gone, noisily playing in another room.

“Pretend,” he says. The only order he plans on giving her today. “Like the way you occasionally pretend that I’m your boss and you respect me.”

“I respect you,” Gerri argues.

“Ha. Fucking. Ha.” He settles in a chair now, lets her have the desk. “Let’s start with shit we tracked down from their food and weed traffic.”

They breakup around dinner time, Isla dragging Gerri through two different rooms before Gerri can escape, Isla showing her no less than a dozen dolls as Roman sips his watered down scotch, quietly smirking.

“And this one has hair that changes color when it gets wet!”

“Does it?” Gerri asks. Takes the scotch from his hand, downing it in one elegant motion before she hands back the empty glass back, Roman trying not to chuckle at the polite smile she wears all the way to the door. 

Isla insists on pizza for dinner because it’s Saturday and they watch movies in the family room, plates balanced on their bellies as Isla giggles her way through her favorite animated movie.

“Mommy loved this part,” she says calmly, and it feels wrong that it’s only been eight months and she can already sound like that. But the alternative is worse and he feels guilty for even thinking it.

. . .

The Vaulter sale goes through and it immediately proves a mistake, Kendall coming around too late to do anyone any good.

“You were right,” Kendall says, gesturing wide, the two of them alone in Ken’s office. “Is that what you want?”

“Fucking no,” Roman replies. “What I want is for you to trust me and not go all Logan Roy II.”

“I’m trying,” Ken says. “It’s hard enough without you breathing down my neck.”

“I don’t want your job,” Roman says, sitting down here. “If that’s what this is about, let me very fucking clear that I don’t want your job. I’m barely getting by with Isla and the job I already have. I’m not looking to take your throne.” Ken’s whole body relaxes at that. “Can’t you just talk to me like a fucking human? Please?” 

“I don’t know why I thought it would be easier than this,” Ken admits. “Why did I think it would be easier than this?” 

“Because Pop is a psycho who made it look easy by way of having no human capacity for doubt or remorse. But maybe there’s a doctor somewhere in Asia who removes consciences. Just scoop ours out with a fucking melon baller.” 

“Yeah,” Kendall sighs. Sounds more miserable now than he did a minute ago, which isn’t necessarily bad. 

“Do me a favor,” Roman says. “Stop taking shit out on Gerri and Frank. They already have to wipe my chin everyday, clean up my mistakes while I get up to speed. They don’t need to catch shit for doing the job you pay them to do.” 

“I swear Gerri used to hate you,” Ken says, smiling a little here. “Now it’s like you’re winning the popularity contest with everyone.” 

“There’s no contest,” Roman says as he stands up. “And Gerri most definitely still hates me, so no worries there.” 

Isla has a dance recital at seven, so Roman works until six. Will probably log on at home later, work well into the morning since it’s not like he’ll sleep. 

“I just got an email from Kendall,” Gerri says, catching him on his way out. “Some kind of an apology for the way he’s been acting during the Vaulter stuff.” 

“Recovered addicts do that,” he says, packing things into his bag as she hovers in front of his desk. “Apologize a lot, often fucking randomly. You get used to it.”

“Randomly,” Gerri repeats, clearly disbelieving, and Roman doesn’t pause what he’s doing to look at her. 

“I inherited the asshole genes,” he announces, his tone light. “Ken’s just trying his best most of the time.” 

Isla’s performance goes well, she absolutely fucking kills her ballet routine, but Roman gets dragged to a group dinner afterward, happy families all crowded into a restaurant, smiling and laughing, and he must really be fucking damaged because the sound of it all makes his stomach turn. 

There’s a sleepover afterward, Isla getting into another car with another family, and Roman has to swallow down the bile that comes with watching his daughter disappear into a night, climbing into a car that isn’t his. But that’s his shit to handle and he doesn’t want her to ever know. 

He goes back to the office because it’s been better than being home alone, staring at Isla’s empty room. The only other light on in the executive suite is Gerri’s, but he never sees her, she doesn’t once darken his office door, and he thinks that’s better for everyone. 

. . . 

The articles about Ken’s old shoplifting and Grace’s autopsy surface the same day, all of them gathered in England for Shiv’s wedding, and Roman wishes their father would have come now because he’d really like the opportunity to spit directly in the man's face.

“How can I help?” Shiv asks him and it sounds like she means it, no matter that she brought Gil Eavis here and she’s never really on their side, always playing her own game. 

“Kill the Ken story,” Roman says, the two of them hiding in a corner when Gerri saddles up beside them. 

“You don’t want me to handle the Grace stuff first?” Shiv asks. “Rome, are you sure?” 

“It’s already out there,” he says. Feels numb again, like he did those first few months, just going through the motions of getting Isla dressed and then to school, repeating the same meaningless tasks in the hours he wasn’t with her. “The Ken stuff dad’s leaking will hurt the company more.” 

“Are you positive?” Gerri asks him, when Shiv moves away to make a call. “I don’t know if we can kill both, not even with Shiv’s help.”

“My daughter’s already destined to hear that her mom wrapped her car around a guardrail because of a bottle of champagne and a hit of molly. No reason Sophie and Iverson should have to read about their dad’s perverse attraction to free lighters.” 

There are other reasons, money reasons, but none of them matter as much and the way Gerri looks at him here, all searching and weird, makes him wish he’d just lied. Spewed a bunch of bullshit about stock prices and optics, the need to protect the CEO at all costs. 

They get bear hugged by Stewy and Sandy on the morning of the wedding and then the satellite explodes in Japan, right before Shiv’s reception. 

A banner day.

“Did you know about any problems there?” Ken demands, all of them huddled up, watching him panic. 

“ _No_ ,” Roman shoots back, angry that Ken’s turning on him when it’s been less than a fucking hour. “I mean, yes, there were some safety concerns, okay? But there are at least a dozen emails where I said to take more time, address them, not rush anything.” It was tempting to push it up, time it for the wedding, but he kept thinking about all the people involved and Grace’s car wrapped around that guardrail and no, no he wouldn’t. 

“I think Roman’s in the clear here,” Gerri chimes in. “Whatever happened is way below his level.” 

Isla’s playing with the other kids, happy and smiling while Sophie shows her something on a phone, both of them giggling when Iverson tries to show them a dance he’s learned, and Roman has to fight the urge to pick his kid up and throw her over his shoulder. Get on a plane and never look back. 

“Right,” Ken is saying now. “Of course.” But Roman doesn’t listen to anything after that, walking away a minute later. Dances with Shiv and ignores Wambsgans, Isla coming over to them because she dropped her bracelet and she can’t find it. 

“It’ll turn up,” Shiv says, which is probably a lie. There are way too many bodies moving around to find something as small as the little gold chain she lost. 

“We can always get another one,” Roman says. Picks her up and lets her sniffle against his neck. 

He’s back in his suite for the night, Isla watching a TV show on the couch, when there’s a knock at the door. 

“Hey,” Gerri says, when he opens the door, Isla’s bracelet in her hand. “Look what I found.” 

He doesn’t want to talk to her but he probably doesn’t have any choice. Invites her in and shows her to the other sitting room, the door halfway shut so he can still keep an ear out for Isla. 

“What can I help you with this horrible evening?” He hands her a drink but doesn’t pour himself one, feels too upset to let himself have a scotch. 

“Kendall wants us both in Japan,” she announces, glass cradled in her hands. “We leave next week.” 

“Isla has stuff in New York,” he shakes his head immediately. “No way I’m fucking off to Japan to wipe Waystar’s ass on TV.” 

“I tried to get you out of it,” she says. “Go with my team, maybe take Frank. But he wants your face over there and he’s right. Waystar needs your particular brand of charm right now.” 

“I don’t care,” he replies, his voice rising now. “The answer is no.” 

“Then this is probably your last week as COO,” she breathes out. Doesn’t sound threatening or angry, only resigned. “Is that what you want?” 

Yeah, he probably should have seen that coming. 

“Give me the night to think about it,” he says, one hand rubbing at his throbbing forehead. “I can’t decide anything right now, not after this piece of shit day.” 

“I think this is Kendall asking for help,” Gerri says, a kind expression on her face he rarely sees because it actually looks sincere. “Maybe the only way he knows how to ask for help.” 

Roman thinks she’s wrong, this is just Ken sending the two people he now trusts the least far away, out of range, but he’s not going to argue about that now. None of it matters anyway. It’s all pointless bullshit. 

“Can Gerri stay?” Isla asks when he walks Gerri out. 

“Gerri needs her rest,” he says. “She’s been babysitting everyone all day.” Gerri makes an amused noise at that, doesn’t deny it. 

“Where’s Japan?” Isla asks her, Gerri freezing and Roman sucking in a long, painful breath. 

“It’s in Asia,” Gerri says after a beat. “Do you know where Asia is?” 

“I’ve been to Hong Kong two times!” Isla says, holding up two fingers here. “Hong Kong’s in Asia.” 

“Not so different then,” Gerri says, glancing at Roman here, Roman shaking his head in warning because she’s rapidly approaching the line. “Well, goodnight then. See you both tomorrow at brunch.” 

Isla sleeps in his bed, worms her way in after he puts her down, and Roman doesn’t bother to send her back to her own bed, no matter what her therapist says about bedtime and consistency. They’re not at home, this isn’t even his real bed and they might be fucking off to Japan next week, so if Isla wants to sleep next to him, curled up against his side, that’s fine with him. 

“Is Mommy in Japan?” Isla asks when she’s almost asleep, and this happens sometimes. Sometimes, when she’s exhausted or upset, she just forgets. Like the last eight months never happened, all those bedtimes when he had to explain that no, Mommy can’t come out to read her just one more story. Like Grace was hiding in a fucking closet somewhere, just dodging them both. 

“No,” he forces himself to breathe out, his hand in her hair. “Mommy’s not in Japan, rabbit. She’s gone, remember?” 

“Oh yeah,” she sighs, a tiny little sound. Rolls over after that, immediately falling asleep against him, Roman staring up at the ceiling now, feeling like he can’t breathe. 

. . .

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> IF you don't know this song, and IF you decide to look it up, and IF you have any affection in your chest for me... you will listen to the live version from Union Chapel first because it's the anthem of my heart. 
> 
> P.S. Sorry not sorry, Grace. You were gone anyway. ¯\\_(ツ)_/¯


	2. Chapter 2

“You got everything?” Roman asks, though he knows they do. He’s checked three times. 

“Yeah,” Isla says listlessly, dragging behind him as they head out the door.

“You got Mr. Bugs?” 

Isla holds up her pink stuffed rabbit here, the most cooperative she’s been all morning, and already Roman really regrets this fucking trip. 

She’s been excited about the idea of going to Japan, googling random shit on her iPad for days, shoving pictures in his face as she rattled on excitedly, but of course she woke up this morning with zero desire to go anywhere. Threw two fits before breakfast, refusing to get off the couch as she kicked and screamed. 

His luck he had a kid who’s as fucking moody as he is. 

“Morning,” he halfheartedly waves to people as he gets on the jet. He sees the way Gerri’s eyebrows draw up over her glasses when she spots Isla dragging behind him, and he wonders here what she expected him to do. Just ditch his kid with some nanny for six days, maybe have Isla crash at Kendall’s new bachelor pad? 

“Good morning,” Gerri echoes, already has that tepid smile of hers cued up, and Roman’s going to need a coffee enema if this is what he can look forward to for the next fourteen and a half hours. 

“Only one more orange juice,” he tells Isla when he sees her clock the flight attendant. “After that water, okay?” Isla hunkers down a few rows away after that, headphones jammed in her ears and clearly in a snit, and Roman sighs, signaling the flight attendant for some coffee. “Feel free to hand me the whole pot,” he says, taking the cup. Chugs half of it down and then sets up his laptop opposite Gerri. 

“Bad morning?” she asks. Maybe she’s just trying to be nice, but Roman watched her and the other suits handle his dad for years, fluffing him up, calming him down, and he really hates being handled. 

“Fucking peachy,” he says, scrolling through his emails now. He can see Gerri take a beat at that, maybe wondering how to react to his sour attitude, and he decides to rein it in. With all the shit in his inbox, his brother’s clearly making everyone’s morning hard enough already, no need to pile on another Roy-style tantrum when they’re all just trying to make do. 

The flight attendant actually brings him a whole pot of coffee because apparently they don’t teach humor or tone in flight attendant school, and Roman takes it rather than handing it back. He really will kill the whole pot, might as well keep it.

“Thank you,” Gerri says, when he tops off her coffee cup. Hands her the little thing of creamer he won’t use, notices her cup has some milk or something in it. 

“I looked over everything you sent,” he tells her, “but I didn’t see any hospital visits on the itinerary.” 

“Well,” she begins, clearly debating her next words. “We can do that. And if it goes well, it will be great for us.” She shifts, adjusting the bangle on her wrist. “On the other hand, a hospital visit that comes off poorly will be another PR hit. A big one.” 

“You’re worried I’ll come off like a flippant asshole.” 

“I didn’t say that,” she says immediately. 

“No,” he allows, already refilling his coffee cup. “But it would be easier if you did.” She stares at him here, obviously waiting him out, and he shrugs, sitting back with his cup cradled in his hands, legs pretzeled him under him. “You can be honest with me. Like, actually fuck blunt. The way you are when I piss you off.” 

“You’re impulsive,” she says, after a beat. “Reckless and often unfiltered. Basically the worst combination of traits to throw in front of some cameras, have a chat with a couple of guys who just lost their thumbs.” 

“Wow,” he laughs, nearly spilling his coffee. “Brutal. Fucking brutal, but okay.” 

“You asked for it,” she reminds him. 

“Alright,” he says, head leaning back in his chair now. “Well, yes, I have been known to act the raging idiot a time or fifty, and I believe my own mother often refers to me as a cunt, but I would like it noted that such behavior is mostly behind me.” She gives him a dubious look here and he smirks at that, wonders how quickly he’ll regret telling her to be more blunt with him. “How ‘bout we play a little game of let’s make a deal.” 

“Not a game,” she says, snippy now. “Hundreds of millions of dollars on the line with your brother already panicking about the stock price sinking closer to 130 during a hostile takeover. But sure. A game. Go on.”

“I think it’s a shitty thing for the COO to go all the way over there and not even blow through the hospital. Bad optics all around, sure. But also the kind of fucked up thing my dad would do because he can’t emote? Just fucking yell?”

“You weren’t responsible for this,” she chimes in, outright sidestepping the last bit. “Someone looking to get promoted by way of providing fireworks for your sister’s wedding day did this, and he’s already been fired.” 

“And I was his fucking boss,” Roman frowns. “I mean, someone beneath you, maybe Sameena or Eva take a giant shit on something, you’re fucking wearing that. This is the same. Or it should be even if it isn’t.” She looks at him like she’s confused here and he knows he’s probably rambling, too much coffee and not enough sleep. But his style has always been to throw too many words at things; swears and jokes, the occasional reference thrown in that no one ever gets. “Why don’t you give me fifteen minutes at the hospital. Keep me on a dog collar the whole time, yank my little leash the second you don’t like something I say.” 

“Because you take direction so well?” 

“I will,” he says. “Honestly, I will. I know we’re on clean up duty here. I’m just trying to help shovel the shit.” 

“Fine,” she sighs. “But I’m drawing up a list of topics for you to avoid and by no means will it be exhaustive.” 

“Fine.” 

He sits up a little in his seat, checking behind him to where Isla is, but it looks like she’s passed out now, probably tired from getting up at the crack of dawn. 

“Do you have someone lined up to watch her in Japan?” 

“A service that Frank recommended,” he says, not thrilled about it. But he’s still yet to get much of a new domestic staff in place and he doesn’t trust either his assistant or housekeeper to do it. “But the idea of some rando watching her is -” He catches himself, turning back around in his seat. “It would be easier if it was someone Isla had met before.” 

“I have some friends who lived in Osaka for years and they used the same woman the entire time. Would you like me to see if she’s available?” 

“Yeah,” Romans says. “Yeah that’d be fucking great.” He remembers here what Frank said about misusing Counsel for babysitting duties, Gerri’s face when he gave her that half-assed apology.“You don’t have to set up anything. I can have my assistant do the contacting and what not.” 

“It’s fine,” she waves him off, already texting away on her phone. Looks up at him over her glasses, a small smile that looks almost kind. “Roman, it’s fine. I’ve got it.” 

Isla wakes up three hours later, full of piss and vinegar the second she opens her eyes and realizes she’s still on a plane, Roman telling her that they have about ten more hours to go. 

“Alright,” he says, when Isla starts melting down. “You wanna do that thing we usually do to get all the grumpies?” 

“No!” 

“Too bad, we’re doing it.” 

It’s not actually all that easy to find space against a bulkhead that the two of them can fit against, no furniture or people in the way, but he manages. Lays on the ground with his lower back and legs propped up against the bulkhead, calling to Isla until she eventually sulks her way over. Throws her little body on the ground next to him, her hair spilling onto his face. 

“I don’t want to,” she complains, legs already propped up next to him. 

“That’s because we haven’t drained all the grumpies out yet.” He crosses his hands over his stomach, sighing for effect. “Do you feel them draining?”

“ _No._ ” 

“Really? Are sure? Because I’m pretty sure I can see them coming out of your head.”

“Cannot!”

“Well then what’s this?” he asks, gently tugging at some of her hair. 

“That’s my hair,” she laughs.

“I don’t know,” he says. “Let me taste it.”

“Daddy, no!” she squeals, twisting away as he pretends to chomp on her hair. 

“I’m telling you, those are grumpies. They taste sour and everything. You don’t believe me? Here, taste them.” 

It only takes another few minutes of that before Isla’s giggling like crazy, squirming against him, Roman moving to stand up. 

“Does Gerri not have grumpies to get out?’ Isla asks him as he pulls her up by her arms. 

He looks over at Gerri here, Eva and another person huddled up with her, and if she were anyone else, he would swear Gerri’s expression was a fucking dare. 

“Gerri doesn’t have any grumpies,” he says sweetly, batting his eyelashes in their direction. “And if she did, she’s grown enough to handle them herself.” 

He sets up Isla with a snack and one of the games she likes the most. He normally tries to steer her toward the more educational ones, but it’s a long flight yet and if she wants to rot her brain with some kind of Kardashian bullshit, maybe a little Candy Crush, that’s fine. He doesn’t care right now.

“I sent you those talking points,” Gerri says, when he sits back down, Eva still beside her clearing fighting a smile. 

“Thanks,” he says. Gestures with his hand at the vague direction of the bulkhead he previously occupied with Isla. “And you never saw that.” 

“Of course not,” Eva says, her tone even, and Roman winks at her. Opens his laptop to stare at the shit while Gerri huddles with other people. 

. . . 

The suite at the Ritz is far from ideal, the two bedrooms separated by a huge living room. But it’s fine, he’ll just loiter in the living room at night so he can hear Isla if she wakes up. 

Gerri is right next door, which is also fine; easier, probably. He’s relieved when she zips right into her own suite and promptly closes the door, no attempt at small talk after that long ass flight. 

It’s only a little after noon now, which is a real kick in the dick, but at least Isla slept on the plane twice, can probably make it most of the way to bedtime without having another meltdown. 

“You hungry?” he asks her and she shakes her head, still looking around. Opening and closing random drawers and then standing on the couch to see how springy it is. 

“The one in Hong Kong was better,” she declares, and he laughs at that. Remembers Grace scolding both of them for jumping up and down on the couch in that one suite, when he accidentally shoulder checked the wall, knocked down that ugly ass painting Grace said that she liked even though- 

“There’s a fish!” Isla points out, standing in front of the tank built into the dining room’s wall. 

“There sure is,” he says, hand on his stomach, willing away the bout of nausea that’s presently threatening to knock him off his fucking feet. “You want to have it for dinner later? Make our own sushi?” 

She giggles at that, like she’s delighted at the thought. 

An hour later a matronly woman named Lydia turns up at the hotel with a lilting, indiscernible accent and a warm smile, introducing herself to Isla and then Roman. 

“Lydia’s gonna play with you while I work this week,” Roman tells Isla. 

“But Gerri’s here,” she pouts. 

“Gerri has to work, too.” 

Yeah, okay, maybe Frank had a point about sticking Gerri with his kid that one time, if months afterward Isla still thinks of her as a babysitter. 

“Have you been to the zoo here?” Lydia asks Isla. “I have some pictures on my phone. We can look at them later. Maybe we can go together?” 

He doesn’t love the idea of Isla wandering around the city with a stranger, but she can’t just stay in the hotel for days on end, getting bored out of her mind, this chick making her color and do her school work or whatever the fuck. Maybe stuff like the zoo isn’t the worst, and he can always see Isla’s location on his phone. 

“Thanks,” Roman says to Lydia when he gets ready to leave. Actually means it because Isla already likes her and that makes his life easier, way less stressful. 

He’s supposed to meet everyone downstairs in ten minutes but he and Gerri walk out into the hallway at the same time, Gerri’s focus on her phone, obviously distracted, because she nearly walks right into him. 

“Sorry,” she says, catching herself before she trips over his feet. 

“My fault. I have big feet for such a tiny man.” She snorts at that, both of them walking down the hall.

“How’s Lydia doing in there?” she asks him, once they’re in the elevator. 

“Great,” he says. Leans against the wall with a yawn. “Thank you for the recommendation.”

“Sure,” she says, that same easy tone she uses with Kendall. 

“No, really,” he says. Waits until he has her attention, her eyes no longer glued to her phone. “Thank you. I appreciate it.” 

She nods at him here, clearly a little thrown off, and he thinks that sucks. People never expect him to act like a fucking human being. 

The first stop today is a roundup with their team in Osaka and he can tell a minute in that everyone’s wagons are circled, people terrified to lose their jobs, not parting with any useful information unless it’s pulled from the back of their throats with a pair of pliers. And people in the second meeting keeping to deferring to him even though it’s Gerri asking the questions and Gerri they should be answering, and yes, there are some fucking cultural differences and the room is a total sausage fest, but Gerri outranks everyone else in the room by like a mile and he finds the deference to him annoying, a waste of his time. 

“If everyone could direct their answers to Gerri,” he sighs, pinching the bridge of his nose. “Since it’s her mouth that keeps opening to produce words and I do not, in fact, have the ability to throw my fucking voice.” 

That startles a few people at least. Makes them rattled, suddenly a lot freer with information. 

“Not to sound ungrateful,” Gerri says in the car, on the way to a third meeting, “but I’ve been dealing with shit like that about as long as you’ve been alive. I don’t need you to step in for me.” 

“It was just so obnoxious,” he complains, Gerri pulling a face. 

“You think?” 

He laughs, turning his torso toward her. “Do I owe you another apology here?” 

“No,” she says. “But sometimes it’s better for people to ignore me like that. Gives me more maneuvering room.”

“Don’t fuck up Counsel’s mojo. Got it.” 

The last item of the day is a diplomatic dinner that he mostly shuts up at, let’s Gerri do all the talking while he nods, chimes in with a few five-word phrases she’s pre-approved.

“Sorry,” he says, glancing at his phone when a text comes in. “My daughter. She’s in town with me.” 

“How old?” someone asks. 

“Seven,” he smiles. “Soon enough none of my old tricks will work on her.” 

Dinner goes well, he thinks, but it runs late. He’ll probably miss bedtime with Isla unless she’s so fucked up by the time change that she’s fruit loopy, jumping on hotel couches while Lydia struggles to calm her in time for bed. 

“Oh,” he says, scanning a text from Lydia. 

“Everything okay?” Gerri asks. 

“Fine,” he says. “Just missed bedtime is all.” 

There’s a lull after that, Roman watching the city lights stream by them as they maneuver through traffic, the sound of Gerri typing on her phone a comforting white noise against the chaos of the city around them. 

“You did well at dinner,” Gerri says when the two of them get out of the car. “Do you want to stay longer at the hospital tomorrow, maybe a half an hour instead of fifteen minutes?’ 

“I thought you were worried about me being a liability. You know, all mouth, no brain.” 

“There’s a brain,” she assures him. “That part I never doubted.” 

Isla’s sleeping hard by the time he gets in, Lydia in the living room, reading a book. 

“Thanks again,” he says. Confirms the time tomorrow before she leaves, then goes to the bar to pour himself a drink. 

He has a million messages from Kendall, some of it about the bear hug bullshit but most of it about the fucking mess at Vaulter, that little cunt Lawrence already stirring up trouble, pissing in pots just to be a dick. 

He forwards some stuff to Frank for him to handle, works up a few solutions to other things, cc’ing Gerri or Karolina where appropriate. Stops to send a text to Shiv because he remembers he never returned her call two days ago. Really hopes she doesn’t want to do dinner when he gets back because this month sucks enough without having to stare at one of Wambsgans’ awful suits, up close and personal. 

He eventually lies down on the couch for a little while, maybe sleeps for two hours or so before his phone alarm goes off, Isla already moving around in her room. 

He asks Gerri to pop over via text because it’s just easier, more time efficient to strategize with her at the same time he gets some food down his kid. 

“You want waffles or cereal?” he asks Isla. 

“Eggs,” Isla says, which is fucking lie. She never wants eggs, only says she does, and the second they’re in front of her she’ll push them away with a grossed out expression. 

“Eggs it is,” he says. Orders some waffles and cereal too, plus a few more things. 

“Morning,” Gerri says. Knocks on the propped open door but still comes right in, room service right behind her. 

“I don’t know what your breakfast order is,” Roman says. “But there’s a little of everything. Help yourself.” 

“Thanks,” she says. “I assume this juice is Isla’s?” 

“Juice!” Isla says, grabbing the glass from Gerri, and Roman gives her a stern look. 

“Say thank you,” he tells her. 

“Thank you,” Isla parrots back, no shred of shame for the bad manners. 

He puts the eggs in front of Isla and of course she glares at him like he’s trying to poison her. 

“You want some cereal instead?” he asks. He picks up a waffle and starts eating it, doesn’t bother to use a plate. 

“So we go to the plant first,” Gerri announces. “But that’s an hour transit each way, so we’ll have to keep to schedule there if you want to make it to the hospital before noon.” 

“Who’s in the hospital?” Isla asks, Gerri glancing at Roman here. 

“Some people who work for Waystar,” he says, handing her a napkin. “They got hurt when that satellite we tried to launch didn’t work the way it was supposed to.” 

“Are they hurt a lot?” 

“Mm, medium hurt,” he says. 

“Medium hurt because they lost their thumbs?” 

Fuck, he didn’t realize she was awake for that on the plane. He grimaces behind his cup of coffee before he puts it down.

“A lot of people work very hard for our company,” he says, reaching over to wipe the part of her face he missed. “When bad things happen we owe it to them to show up in person. Say thank you for all the stuff they do.” It’s the kind of thing he used to think was bullshit, especially when his dad would say it because Logan never meant it, always just empty words, complicated air flow. But then Grace gave birth to Isla and he had a tiny human to teach about the world, so he started trying harder and going to therapy because he didn’t want his kid to walk around in the same bubble of loneliness he does, forever alone with his fucked up thoughts and no way to relate to other people.

“Does Gerri work hard for us?” He laughs at that, feeling a little relieved he’s escaping soon if Isla’s starting the day with this many questions. She normally doesn’t make it up to full speed for at least an hour. 

“Oh, Gerri works the hardest,” Roman says, smirking at Gerri over the table. “She has to put up with me and Uncle Kendall, too. Spends her whole day going around, fixing everyone else’s mistakes. Isn’t that right, Gerri?” 

“Some days are easier than others,” Gerri allows. Carefully slices into the grapefruit in front of her. 

“Do you work harder than Daddy?” 

“Definitely,” Gerri says, not missing a beat. Gives Isla a smile that makes her giggle into her cereal bowl. 

“Not that that’s settled,” Roman says, standing up. “I’m gonna pack your backpack for the zoo. You want Mr. Bugs to go with you?” 

“Yeah.” 

It only takes a minute because he mostly packed it last night. Well, technically this morning, but either way it’s mostly done and he sets on the couch, where Lydia is sure to see it. 

“Be good today, rabbit. Send me lots of pictures.” 

The helicopter ride to the plant is unpleasant, the winds rough the whole way. He sees Gerri pale at one point, one hand clenched against her seat, and he doesn’t know whether the polite thing is to ignore it or ask her if she’s alright. 

He decides to split the difference, handing her the water he grabbed for himself but hasn’t opened. Tries not to watch as she unscrews it with unsteady hands. 

“Let’s take a minute,” he says when they’re on the ground. Blessedly fucking stable, non choppy ground. 

“I’m fine,” Gerri lies. 

“Of course you are,” he says, looking around. “But I’m a giant baby who gets nauseous at the drop of a hat, so let’s take a minute.” 

The plant tour is boring and long, most of it technical stuff that’s above his head, would probably be beyond his comprehension even if he’d actually applied himself in school. 

“What does that thing do?” he asks randomly, zipping across a room to something that looks cool. Techno, weird, _Forbidden Planet_ type bullshit that he can’t help but play with. 

“It’s a little delicate,” their guide cautions, which probably means Roman’s about to snap the model in half. 

“Neat,” Roman says, putting it down again. “Fucking neat.” 

They leave the plant early because their pilot is worried about the wind, thinks if it gets much worse they’ll have to be grounded, and Roman doesn’t like the sound of that at all. Zips right back to the helicopter, Gerri hot on his heels. 

The ride is actually bumpier this time, which he didn’t think was possible, Gerri clearly looking like she needs to throw up. 

“I swear I won’t tell anyone if you put your head between your knees”. He isn’t trying to be a smartass, she just looks miserable and it’s only the two of them, no staff around to see her.

She doesn’t take his suggestion but she does close her eyes for the whole trip, one jolt startling her so much that her hand shoots out to his leg, Roman patting the back of it before she can pull it back. 

“That stays between us,” she tells him, the moment they’re off the helicopter. 

“Which part? You being a human with a body that’s affected by turbulence, or you trying to grope me up on the ride?” She gives him a real glare for that and Roman bites his cheek, tries not to laugh in her face because it’s taken this long to get her to lukewarm.

The hospital is a hospital, all sterile and weird smelling, and the first conversation is awkward, he can feel himself fumbling, Gerri and someone else hovering in the doorway, probably debating whether to pull him out. But the second one goes a little better and the guy’s wife is there, clearly scared, and he flashes back to that hospital in California, that doctor talking to him in a calm voice even though Roman was halfway hysterical, and he takes a deep breath. Tries a little harder. 

“What’s the first thing you’re gonna do when you get out?” Roman asks, and the guy starts to rattle off a long ass list, his wife occasionally chiming in. “Is that place good for kids?” he asks, when something about a theme park comes up, and soon enough they all have their phones out, showing ridiculous pictures of their kids, everyone laughing. 

“Roman,” Gerri says hesitantly, and he knows they’re running over on time, still have another visit to make.

“We can push that meeting back an hour, can’t we,” he says, still swiping at photos. Listens to a story about their kid throwing up the dude’s boss. “Bring ‘em here,” he tells the wife. “He can throw up on me, too. Nail that other guys’ boss’s boss while he’s at it.” 

They leave the hospital two hours later and he knows Gerri’s team is probably annoyed that their carefully planned out schedule is fucked six ways from sideways. 

“We’ll move that next meeting to tomorrow,” Gerri says. “Then it’s just the press conference and after that you’ll be back in time for Isla’s bedtime.” 

“Thank you,” he says, their driver opening the car door for them. “That’s the best news I’ve had all day.” He catches her glancing at him on the ride back, doesn’t call her out until the second time. “However I fucked up, just tell me.” 

“No fucking up,” she says.

He doesn’t believe her but decides to just let it go.

The press conference goes quickly and easily, he only defers to Gerri on two questions and sticks to the script she provided, riffing a little when he gets a confusing follow up question. 

“Don’t let the last name fool you,” he says in his best self-effacing tone. “My job is mostly to listen to people way smarter than me and keep my hair looking this awesome.” He sees two of Gerri’s team smile at that, Eva shaking her head as she chuckles in the back, but Gerri’s face doesn’t crack and he wonders if the woman ever laughs at all. Maybe when she’s alone, reading his emails and thinking about what a dipshit he is.

They get out in time for a real dinner, maybe someplace with weird food that Isla will delight in, but Ken’s sent three more messages about the Vaulter bullshit in the last hour and Roman knows that they probably need to triage that now. 

“I’d like to have dinner with my kid,” he says to Gerri in the hotel elevator. 

“That’s fine,” she says. “Text me when you get back.” 

“Just come with us,” he waves her off. “We can start detangling Ken’s bullshit while we’re there.” He doesn’t really think about the fact that he maybe just ordered Gerri to tag along to his family dinner until they’re almost to their suites. “You’re welcome to stay behind. Clock some non-Roy time. I can meet up with you after.” 

“I live on Roy time,” she drawls. “And you’re right, we should work during dinner. But I need to change first. These shoes are a nightmare.” 

Isla is still amped up from the zoo, showing him pictures and telling about a monkey that apparently threw actual shit at a family that stopped to pose for a portrait.

“Did it get on you?” 

“Almost!” 

“Maybe next time,” he says. Tickles her until she shrieks, Gerri knocking on the door. “Oh, hey. Gerri’s coming with us to dinner. Is that okay?” 

Isla pretty much bounces off the walls after that, spewing hurried words and shoving her iPad in Gerri’s face as Roman begs her to get her shoes on. 

“Isla, shoes. Now.” 

Gerri claims not to care where they go for dinner and Roman’s so tired he can’t even think about food, so they end up at one of those hot pot places, Isa’s trying to stick her face over the bubbling broth as Roman drops in various proteins and veggies. 

“Rabbit, it’s hot. Very hot. Just sit in your chair and don’t touch it, okay?” 

This was clearly a bad idea, but Gerri’s better at the hot pot stuff than he is and everyone slowly gets fed, Isla burning her tongue only once, not even crying because she’s too busy looking around at all the people crowded into booths around them. 

“So Vaulter,” Roman says. Pauses for a long, suffering sigh before he shoves some burning hot meat in his mouth, chewing quickly. “I think when we get back I’ll go over there, take the staff out. Get everyone drunk so they’ll start talking.” 

“You think that’ll work?” Gerri asks. 

“It shouldn’t,” he says, stopping to gently push Isla back into her chair. “But it usually does and I think if I get enough sake bombs down some of those fucks, they’ll give me all their dirty little union secrets.” 

“Couldn’t hurt,” Gerri says. Manages to get a mushroom out without making even the smallest dribble on the table. 

“Do you practice this at home or something?” he asks her, annoyed as fuck when the dumpling he’s after falls apart, nearly tumbling into his lap. 

“It’s not difficult. You just have to be patient. Strategic.” 

“Right,” Roman says. “Be one with the hot pot.” 

The whole team reconvenes in his suite after Isla goes to bed, everyone triaging their email as the messages start rolling in, morning in New York. But at some point people start peeling off one by one, until the only one left with him is Gerri.

“Shit,” Gerri hisses and Roman stops typing. Pivots to look at her because he’s never seen her react so openly to a message before. 

“What’s up?” 

“A thing from Karolina,” she hedges. “Nothing you need to worry about yet.” 

“Fine,” he says, not willing to argue with her here. Adds, mostly to be an asshole, “If Ken’s shoplifting again, good luck. That dude really loves pocketing vape pens.” 

“You know that’s still going on?” she asks. Sounds curious, not so much testing. 

“It’s off and on. Always gets worse when he’s stressed.” He slips off his shoes now, no idea why he’s still wearing them. ”I wouldn’t tell Karolina to outright deny it if you can hold off. No doubt some shitty security camera footage is out there, just waiting to cunt punt us the second we do.” 

“Lovely,” Gerri says, already typing away on her phone. No doubt messaging Karolina. 

She leaves at some point and Roman keeps working. Doesn’t even realize it’s morning until Isla comes in, rubbing her eyes and asking for juice. 

“Sure,” he says, squinting blearily at the time on the computer. 

He has to be out the door in an hour and a half, make three phone calls before everyone’s asleep in New York. Reply to Frank about that one thing, though honestly, he thinks Frank’s take on it is wrong and Gerri’s team is right. Maybe. He’s still deciding.

“You okay?” Gerri asks him when they all head out, Roman already dead on his feet. 

“Fine,” he says, swallowing a yawn. 

Nothing another three cups of coffee can’t fix. 

. . . 

“Thank you again for your time,” Gerri says to the man who, without a doubt, has wasted every fucking minute of three hours she and Roman have given him. 

“Well that’s great,” Roman grouses in the car. “All that buildup and he didn’t even blow us.”

He sees Gerri pull a face at that but he doesn’t care, he missed Isla’s bedtime for that useless bullshit. 

“You haven’t eaten anything since we left the hotel,” Gerri points out. “Do you need something?” 

“I’m fine,” he shakes his head, but then he realizes she hasn’t eaten either and that’s mostly because he made them all skip lunch to make up time. So he’s an asshole, probably. “No, you’re right. Food would be good. I don’t care what. You pick.” 

They end up someplace pretentious and he tells Gerri to order him something while he goes to the bathroom, doesn’t really care what gets set in front of him. 

“Will you drink any wine?” he asks her when he gets back. He only ever sees her drink scotch or martinis, occasionally champagne.

He lets her pick that, too. Doesn’t love what gets delivered but whatever, he’ll live. 

“You want to order something else?” she asks, when he barely touches his wine. 

“No,” he dismisses, checking his phone. “Just tired.” 

“No shit,’ she says, and he blinks at that, watches her sip from her glass. “I get emails from you marked at all hours. There’s no way you’ve slept at all since we’ve been here.” 

“I’ve slept a little,” he defends. Isn’t terribly convincing, mostly wondering now why he didn’t send those emails on delay, so he wouldn’t look so obviously crazy. 

“This isn’t my place and it goes against the grain for me to ask this, but you told me to blunt with you. Are you okay? Are you seeing a therapist?”

His first reaction is to snap at her, maybe make a horrible joke that causes her to regret she ever brought it up. But she doesn’t sound judgy, only concerned. Probably worried the COO’s going to crack up and then she’ll be cleaning up after two nutjobs instead of the one. 

“Nights are hard,” he says. “I keep thinking they’ll get easier but they haven’t yet.” He shrugs, trying to dismiss it. “I don’t know.” 

“It took me a year to sleep through the night after Baird died,” she admits. Glances away from him here, like she’s looking around, even though there’s nothing remotely interesting happening in this building. Just rich people eating passable food.

“What happened at the one year mark?” 

“I don’t know,” she says, like she’s considering it. “Everything was still the same. Work all day and then come home to an empty house. But one day I went to bed and I could actually sleep until morning.” 

It’s a bit of hope she’s handing him, maybe some trust too, and he smiles at her now. Tops off her wine and tries to be a little less brooding, no matter that they have another day and a half to get through and he’s tempted to pop a sleeping pill tonight. 

He’s just so fucking tired. 

He actually lies down in the hotel bed that night, the first time the whole trip, and it’s early enough and he’s miserable enough that he breaks down, takes a pill. Thinks about that last Hong Kong trip while he waits for it to kick in, Grace angry at him for always riling Isla up at night and then upset when he came back drunk the second night. The two of them arguing the next morning because nothing he ever did was right or enough, just an outer shell of a person who’d fly in whichever direction his father pointed, couldn’t be trusted to calm his daughter down at bedtime.

. . .

There’s a lot of light in the room when he wakes up and for a moment he closes his eyes again, enjoying the cocoon of blankets and this weightless feeling, no dull pain throbbing behind his eyes anymore. But then he realizes there’s a lot of light in the room and he can’t hear Isla. 

He can’t hear Isla, even though he obviously overslept and she always demands her breakfast first thing, and now he’s hobbling out of the bedroom as fast as he can, one of his legs apparently still asleep from the weird position he slept in. 

She isn’t in the living area or in the kitchen and she isn’t in her room, and then he sees the front door of the suite propped open, all of the air leaving his lungs in one gush, the rest of his body going as tingly and pin pricked as his leg. 

“Isla?” he calls, when he’s able to produce sound again. “Isla!” 

He stumbles forward, into the hallway. Is about to break out in a run down, start searching, when he hears Isla’s voice. The sound of her giggle. 

“I think your father’s awake,” he hears someone say, and that takes a second to compute. Like his brain is a phone that’s fucking frozen, unable to pull anything up. 

He realizes the door to Gerri’s room is propped open and the sound is coming from there, walks in no matter that he’s in the shorts and the undershirt he slept in. 

“I drew Gerri a monkey!” Isla shouts, holding up a paper, Gerri sitting with his daughter at the dining table of her suite, the remnants of a meal on the other side and Gerri’s laptop open. A million crayons scattered about. 

“A monkey,” Roman repeats. Closes his eyes, trying to breathe. 

“It’s like the one that threw _poop_ at the _zoo_ but Gerri told me not to draw the poop, so it’s just the monkey. Wanna see?” 

“Yeah,” he says, blinking and blinking. “Lemme see.” 

She comes over and shows him, Gerri clearly watching him now, but he can’t think about that or how mad he might be in a minute because his kid is in front of him, safe and sound, holding up a shitty drawing of something that looks nothing at all like a monkey.

“Isla came to visit me an hour ago,” Gerri says, her light tone, not at all matching her expression. “We left you two notes, didn’t we Isla?” 

“And then we ate breakfast but not the eggs because the eggs were gross and gooey.” 

“No one was made to eat eggs,” Gerri says and Isla squirms out of Roman’s arms, skipping off to the bathroom and hollering she has to pee. “I’m sorry we scared you. I was trying to let you sleep and she was fine. I thought you’d see the note we left.” 

“I clearly did not,” he says. Feels ungodly angry here. At Gerri, sort of, but mostly at himself for sleeping through Isla needing him. 

What if she’d just slipped out of the suite, not gone over to Gerri’s room? 

“I’m sorry,” she says again, watching him closely here. “I assumed you needed the rest.” 

“You aren’t a babysitter,” he says hotly, no matter that he’s standing in her hotel room in a dirty undershirt and a pair of SpongeBob shorts that Isla and Grace got him two birthdays ago. 

“Can we go back to the zoo today?” Isla asks when she clomps back into the room. 

“That’s up to you and Lydia,” he says. “Shit, I bet she’ll be here soon. What time is it anyway?” 

“A little after nine,” Gerri says and he winces. Their first item on the schedule started half an hour ago, her staff no doubt had to cancel it. “But I sent a message to Lydia earlier and she shouldn’t be here for another half hour yet.” 

“Okay,” he sighs. Drag Isla into another hug that she doesn’t immediately wiggle out of. “Well, let’s thank Gerri for getting you breakfast and directing your monkey drawings. That was very nice of her.” 

“Thank you,” Isla says, already moving to sit next to Gerri again. Clearly ready to spend the whole day glued to her side, coloring her pictures.

“You’re welcome,” Gerri replies with a polite, careful smile and Roman shakes his head here. Wonders how this became his life. 

He drags Isla back to their suite to get ready. Sees the two notes laid out that he blew right past, one of them on the coffee table, center of the room, and the other clipped to the wall by the door. They’re big, written out in Gerri’s neat print on paper torn from a yellow legal pad, but he just didn’t see them. Couldn't see anything but Isla’s absence though his panic. 

None of Gerri’s team seems upset by the delay and he wonders if they’re all grateful for the reprieve or Gerri’s already ordered them to suck it up, not make any waves. 

“The footage that’s been running from the press conference looks great,” Eva says to him in the lobby, all of them huddled up before they get into separate cars. 

“Oh yeah?” Roman says. “Did Karolina have to doctor it any?” 

“Just muted you a little,” Eva replies. “Let the hair do all the work.” He sees a couple people shift uncomfortably on their feet at that joke, Gerri’s face expressionless, maybe trying to calibrate his reaction, see if she needs to step in, and he rolls his eyes. Feels grateful that at least one person on her team is now clocking him as a human being. 

“Probably for the best,” he breezily announces. Makes a show of smiling with teeth, so everyone will settle the fuck down, know it’s fine to joke with him. 

The meetings that day are full of people, everyone around them jockeying to not be thrown under the bus or else be noticed by a member of the Roy family, and a few times Gerri steps in, a little more curt than usual when people spew too many words in his direction.

“I’m sorry I was an asshole earlier,” he says to Gerri in the car. “You were being nice and I acted like a dick. I just. . .” 

“Panicked,” she supplies. Looks at him like he’s stating the obvious, which clearly he is. “I do have two daughters, you know. Still remember the way I felt when I lost one of them in Bergdorf Goodman. Slipped right out of my hand.” 

He only remembers her kids a bit. They were so much younger, or at least it felt like it when he was a kid, and she almost never brought them to things, not even all those working vacations she and Baird got dragged into going on.

Given his family’s behavior, he understands why she’d keep her kids away, but he also thinks about it now. All those hours the Kellman girls spent away from their parents and then losing weekends and sometimes holidays on top of that. He can’t imagine missing out on that much with Isla. Not now. 

“I’m sorry my clusterfuck of a family sucked up so much of your time, when your daughters were growing up.” 

“We managed,” she shrugs it away, not thrown off by the change in subject. Checks her phone, typing something out as he watches her. “I made my choices.” 

The last full day goes by at a sprint, the thing he slept through is moved to evening, which means he won’t make it back to the hotel for bedtime but that’s his own fault, nothing to do about it now. 

“That wasn’t as excruciating as it could have,” he says on the way back. Feels tired from the day but better for having gotten actual sleep. “Thank you for that.” 

“All these thank you’s and apologies,” Gerri says in a lilting voice. “It’s so very disorienting, after working for your father.” 

“Want me to throw in a little antisemitism? Maybe harass a secretary?” 

“No thanks,” she chuckles. “I’ll take the new guard over the old any day.” 

He’s pleased with that, wasn’t sure which way she’d swing in that regard. She’s been with the company almost as long as Frank, but he at least knows how to read Frank now, has built up some trust there. 

“Would you like to hobble back to the hotel, or do you want to stop somewhere for food?” 

“Let’s stop,” she says, surprising him. “It’s been years since I’ve been here and the city’s changed so much.” 

He sends out a message, inviting the rest of the team, but they all decline, probably exhausted from being around their boss’s boss for days on end. He lets Gerri pick the restaurant again and yet again they wind up somewhere boring but fine. 

“All these restaurants and this is where you want to fucking eat,” he scoffs. “The culinary equivalent of missionary position.”

“You told me to pick,” she says, unfazed. “And I’m not much of a risk taker when it comes to food.” 

“Okay,” he sighs and orders himself a whiskey. No way he’s sharing wine with her after that last oak soaked monstrosity she picked out at the other place.

“I don’t mind telling you that I thought this trip was going to be a miserable experience,” she says over her martini. “I’m relieved to be proven wrong.” 

“Making women not entirely miserable is my specialty. It’s on my business card and everything.” 

“I have a hard time believing you even own business cards.” 

“I do not,” he confirms. Sees her lips twitch as she goes to work on her salad. 

“How soon do you want to tackle the Vaulter stuff?” 

“Never,” he says flippantly. “But probably the first full day we’re back. I sent a couple hand job-y texts today, offering celebratory drinks. So far only the fucking idiots of said yes, but so long as everyone else tells their secrets to the idiots, that’s fine.” 

“Does this really work?” she asks, sounding incredulous. “Just dump booze down their throats, get them to talk?” 

“Only if you’re me and people think you’re a walking joke,” he shrugs. “I can charm some of them. But mostly they think I’m a living, breathing ATM with no other skills. Not totally untrue. I just… play it up. Get them to trust me.” He motions for another round when the server swings by. “I used to poach a lot of film projects that way.” 

“I’d recommend you not go alone.”

“I was going to borrow one of Kendall’s assistants. The bro-y looking one with the big jaw.” 

“Good casting.” 

“Maybe you,” he says. “Depending on how well you can play bad cop. You know, unlikable bitch and all that.” 

“Some have attributed that to me,” she allows, a wry tone here. “But if I’m there they won’t relax around you, right?” 

“No, you’d only go during the office visit with me, before the bar part. Play up a little interoffice conflict and fuckery, let people think we loathe each other. Then I whine about you over drinks, how you always take away my fucking toys or whatever. Then everyone else starts spilling their sob stories.” 

“That’s juvenile,” she says. “And simplistic.” 

“And so are business bro’s,” he replies. “How much dumb shit have you cleaned up on behalf of our mostly male executive suite? Karl and those sports massages.”

She doesn't answer, just drinks deeply from her martini as Roman laughs at her expression.

The car ride back to the hotel is quiet and feels awkward, and Roman doesn’t know what happened. Dinner was kind of enjoyable, he thinks they’ve established that they don’t hate each other, maybe even cobbled together some kind of weird rapport based on sarcasm. He doesn’t know why things feel weird and stilted now, like both of them are afraid to say the wrong thing. 

It’s probably just him being fucking awkward all by himself and Gerri’s only tired, another long day of babysitting a Roy. 

“Night,” he says when they trudge back to their doors, Gerri’s shoes already in her hands.

“Night,” she echoes. She looks like she’s going to say something else but then doesn’t, closing her door behind her.

. . .


	3. Chapter 3

It’s only three o’clock when they land in New York and he’s already been up for twenty-two hours, a dull throbbing setting in at the base of his skull, and he still needs to go into the office, talk to Ken. Has told his personal assistant to pick Isla up at the airport, take her home. 

“You should take the rest of the day,” he tells Gerri, muffling a yawn, and she watches him over her laptop as the plane quietly bumps against the runway. 

The rest of her team is already gearing up for what’s likely to be a proxy battle and they still have the Vaulter bullshit to clean up. Burnout is going to become an ever present danger and most of the people on the plane have families, couldn’t just cart their loved ones off to Japan, the way the COO did. 

Gerri dismisses the rest of her team but still follows him into the office and he doesn’t know how to read that. Maybe her attempt at a compromise when she’d rather everyone push on through, but he thinks it’s more that she won’t consider hanging back, letting him report in without her. 

They walk into the conference room to scattered cheers, a few attempts at a lame slow clap, but Karolina smiles at him so he slips into the seat between her and Frank. Pulls up a GIF set he saved on his phone just for her, chuckling when she cringes, laughing at it anyway. 

“Really great showing, guys,” Kendall announces. “We’re already seeing a solid bump from that little goodwill tour.” 

“All credit to Gerri’s team,” Roman says, feeling all eyes shift his way as he pours himself some coffee. “They made us look good out there, never a false step.” 

“Maybe we should send you and your hair on tour more often,” Frank says.

“Uh, my hair can go,” Roman replies. “But I’m staying put for a while. You get the next tour of duty, asshole.” 

Kendall and Karolina go through a rundown of shit and Roman let’s Gerri chime in where necessary, no feedback needed from him because she’s got it covered. 

“Anything to add?” Kendall asks him, and Roman hates when his brother does this posery, professorial bullshit. If he had anything to add, he obviously would have said so already. This is just an invitation for the two of them to posture in front of a group of people who’ve already seen them at their worst, some of them for decades.

“Nope,” Roman says. “Gerri covered it more succinctly than I ever would.” 

“And with far less swearing,” Frank interjects. 

“We shouldn’t hold that against her,” Roman drawls, already rising from his seat. Knows that Ken will drag this out otherwise, flog the dead horse, and they still need to meet one on one about the Vaulter stuff. 

“Good to have you back,” Frank says before Roman can scoot out the door. 

“Thanks. I’d kill for a fucking slice of pizza.” They bicker in the hallway about what the best pizza place is and as usual, Frank is wrong. Totally fucking wrong. “Did you parents make you eat cardboard during the Great Depression or something? Leave you with a weird affinity for the taste of sawdust? Because that pizza is truly horrible.” 

“Your taste is what’s horrible,” Frank says. “Which we all knew, but still.” They’ve peeled off from everyone else and Frank nods into his office now, an invitation that Roman accepts even though he can only stay for a minute, needs to get over to Ken’s off so he can get home to Isla. “Good job over there. You’re really winning over some hearts and minds.”

“Hearts and minds?” Roman snorts. “That’s the line you wanna fucking pinch?” He shifts on his feet, already uncomfortable. “I just acted as a fluffer. We’ve all done it. No a big deal.” 

“I’m not talking about the press stuff,” Frank says. “I mean the people in this office. The way you laid all the praise as someone else’s doorstep. People respect that and it was something Logan was incapable of, so there’s a real need for it is all I’m saying.” 

“Sure,” Roman shrugs, already shuffling away, back out into the hallway. “Always happy to stuff a void with hearts and dicks. Fucking rainbows. Sunshiny, hand-holdy bullshit.” 

Gerri’s already in Ken’s office and they’re clearly deep in conversation without him, Gerri stopping mid-sentence when Roman walks in. 

“Yo,” Ken says and Roman sighs at that. Wonders if the right cocktail of medicine could make Ken less of a limpdick lame ass. Probably not, but meds helped Roman become something more than a fidgety fucking weirdo, so who knows. 

“Yo,” he parrots back mockingly. Sinks into a seat. 

“Gerri says you’re taking the Vaulter staff out,” Ken says, and Roman throws an annoyed glance at Gerri here because he hadn’t planned to lead with that information. Would probably just dance around it until later, when he has actual intel to bring back to his brother, drop at his door like a flaming bag of dog shit. 

“I’m considering it,” Roman hedges. “Have any thoughts on the matter?” 

He lets Kendall talk for a while, basically making an argument for doing nothing at the same time as he makes an argument for Roman’s plan, and Roman tries really hard to not look as put off and bored as he feels because this is just Ken self-soothing by way of blowing word bubbles at them. It’s not, like, an actual fucking meeting where something is decided or a productive thing occurs. 

“Let Roman and I brainstorm it,” Gerri says in that easy, conciliatory voice she uses to handle people. “We can workshop a few options.” 

“We’re not actually doing that, right?” Roman says to her, once they’re out of Kendall’s office and she immediately shakes her head. “You know, I could have handled that without you. You could have gone home, gotten rest like everyone else.” 

“I needed to show my face just like you did.” 

“Fine,” he says. “But you’ve done that now, so I’m going to ask you to please set a good example for your staff. The next few months are going to fucking brutal, right?” She tilts her head, a pensive expression on her face. “Everyone should rest up while they can.” 

“Are you sure you’re a Roy?” she asks him here, both of them in his office because it’s where he went and she apparently decided to follow him. 

“I’m the only kid we can be sure is a Roy, since dad insisted on a paternity test. That one weirdo riding instructor apparently ambling about with mother dearest that year.” 

“I forgot about that story,” Gerri smirks. “Frank said you actually look a little like him, if I recall correctly.” 

“Nice,” Roman laughs. “Real fucking nice.” He checks something on his computer and then shuts it down, doesn’t plan on hanging out longer than he has to. 

“Let me know what the plan is tomorrow,” Gerri says on her way out the door. 

“Will do, boss.” 

That gets a real smile out of her because of course it does, she likes to be in charge, and Roman feels not horrible as he heads home, people nodding at him as he cuts down the hallway and out to the elevator. 

. . . 

“Remember that Auntie Shiv is picking you up today, okay?” 

Isla lets out a long suffering sigh, the kind of sound that Frank would make, and Roman’s hard pressed not to chuckle as he shepherds her into the school.

Isla likes Shiv, well enough at least, but Tom always tries too hard and then pouts when Isla ignores him in favor of her dolls or a game on her iPad. It’s difficult for Roman to set a good example here, not mock his sister’s husband for being too boring and pathetic to hold the attention of a seven-year-old. 

Work is crazy the moment he gets in the door, people wanting his attention immediately, Karolina hovering in his doorway before he’s even had his second cup of coffee, Roman dismissing the underlings in his office because he doesn’t like the hard set of Karolina’s mouth. 

“You look worried,” he says. “What’s up?” 

Karolina’s always the easy one to deal with, way cooler than her predecessor - a slime ball Roman hated, even when the asshole was the one covering up Ken’s drug habit and all of Roman’s partying, back before Grace got pregnant because of a bottle of wine and a round of antibiotics that threw off her fucking birth control. 

“We might have a small problem,” she says, sitting down. 

“Bigger or smaller than a stolen vape pen?” he asks, trying to get a reaction, but she doesn’t even blink and he picks up his phone. Already thinks his morning is about to go in the shitter. 

“A little bigger,” she says, not smiling even a little. “Did you happen to buy a present for one of the guys injured in the satellite thing?” 

“Kind of,” he hedges. 

“Kind of?” 

“Uh, I got Ichero’s family a lifetime pass to that Universal theme park in Osaka, but I did it through someone else. Got them to lie, tell them it was a random prize being the thousandth blah blah blah.” She tilts her head here and he puts down the phone he’s been halfway hiding behind, gives her his undivided attention. “I take it my random act of kindness is going to bite me in the balls.” 

“Maybe,” she says. “Part of the good press we’ve been getting is the press talking to that family, a wounded employee and his wife singing your praises. If it comes out that you bought them an expensive present beforehand -”

“It wasn’t expensive -”

“It is for people for most people.” She sits back a little in her seat here, her face softening when she says, “Look, I know you and I know you were just trying to do a nice thing. But someone at Universal has already gotten wind of it, and if they try to shop the story to hurt us -” 

“Fucking assholes and their two-bit theme parks,” Roman grumbles. “That family literally doesn’t even know it was from _me_. Like, there was no fucking bribery.” 

“I know,” she says. “But Rome, we have to be really careful here.” 

There’s a knock on the door and he grimaces when he realizes it’s Gerri. But she probably already knows about this and even if she doesn’t, she should, because the next lap it falls in will be hers. 

“Join the party,” he sighs. “Let’s all talk about how Roman’s an asshole.” 

“No one thinks that,” Karolina says. “But I do need you to run these things by me in the future so I can watch out for liabilities.” 

“Kind of takes all of the fun out of everything,” he pouts and Karolina smiles at that, already getting up. “Does Counsel have anything to add?” 

“About your shortsightedness?” Gerri asks, after sipping from a coffee cup. “Or about how random acts of kindness have been rendered impossible by the confluence of clickbait and the current state of tort law?” He only shrugs at that, Karolina scampering away, off to clean up the mess he’s accidentally made. 

“I’m sorry in advance if that explodes into something,” he says.

“It won’t,” she says confidently. “But she’s right, you need to keep us in the loop on things like that, not be so impulsive.” It’s hard not to feel like he’s been hit on the nose with a rolled up newspaper here, but he doesn’t push back, just accepts the criticism as it comes. “Are we still heading over to Vaulter today?” 

“Yeah,” he says. “I parked my kid with Shiv, so tonight’s the night I can stay out, get a bunch of dickless assholes drunk.”

“How do we play this?” she asks. Sounds genuinely curious, willing to follow his lead. 

“With poorly concealed hostility for each other,” he says, putting his feet on his desk. “You know, like a few months ago, when the mere sight of my handsome face annoyed the fuck out of you.” 

“You’re projecting,” she tsks. “You just seemed determined to get under my skin.” He rolls his eyes here, pulling a face that clearly indicates how full of shit she is, and she raises an eyebrow in reply. “Best whore in the whorehouse?”

Fuck, he forgot he even said that. 

“Not my finest moment,” he apologizes. “Especially since that particular title clearly belongs to me.” 

She doesn’t say anything here, gliding out of his office, and in the afternoon they head to Vaulter, a gaggle of staff in tow. 

“I didn’t realize things were so tense over at Waystar,” one of Lawrence’s lesser lieutenants observes, after Roman and Gerri have made a good show of bristling at each other for about an hour. 

“No tension,” Roman says with some bluster. “I’m the boss. Everyone has to bow down or get the fuck out.” 

“Of course,” the guy says, clearly thinking Roman a pompous asshole, and that’s just fine. 

He’s making a little headway already, people starting to open up to him about things they shouldn’t even before they’ve left the office for a bar, and he rounds a corner to find Gerri huddled up with Eva. 

“Just keep your head down and try your best to clean up his mess,” he hears Gerri’s saying, her tone dripping with annoyance in that way it so often does when her facade falls away, no waspy smile covering up the condescension and derision. “We have maybe another six months of triaging his inane antics, and then hopefully his brother will toss him out on his ass, get a real COO in place.” 

He stops on a dime when he hears the last part, Eva making eye contact with him over Gerri’s shoulder, and he thinks it must be part of the act, a little slide of hand for whoever’s around them. Only it looks like the two of them are alone, no apparent audience that Roman can see, and when Eva sees him her expression goes slack with something like pity, Gerri turning around here, Roman immediately spinning on his heel because he has no desire to see her right now. 

“Drinkies?” he asks the dudes from Vaulter, a bunch of them already debating bars. 

His chest feels tight and he just wants to go home, have dinner with his kid, but instead he leads a pack of dipshits into the elevator, Gerri and two staffers already waiting in the elevator lobby. 

Gerri’s clearly trying to catch his eye but he does everything he can to avoid her, insulates himself behind the wall of tech bro’s presently debating _New Yorker_ articles and the best types of vegan cheese. 

“Night,” Gerri says to them in the lobby, her smile here a tight one. 

“Enjoy your evening,” Roman says. Doesn’t look up from his phone as he texts Shiv to ask about Isla, one of the dudes snickering as soon as Gerri walks away. 

“She hates your fucking guts,” the guy says, a few others cracking up now. 

“Yeah,” Roman says, shoving his phone in his pocket as he watches Gerri walk away. “I guess she does.”

He gets drunker than he planned on that night, drunker than he has in years. Types in notes on his phone as people talk about unionizing and some other bullshit about Lawrence, Roman taking care to peck out the names he won’t remember after the fifth round of shots, all of them whooping and hollering when Roman orders another round for everyone. 

He only vaguely recalls getting home, barely able to type the security code in and only after the alarm starts going off, the security company calling his phone, which he couldn’t find for a minute, no matter that it was still in his pocket. 

“Take Isla to school,” he slurs into Shiv’s voicemail. He’s pretty sure that was the plan anyway but he can’t remember as he climbs into bed, worries about getting it wrong. 

His alarm is a rude fucking awakening and he gets down two cups of coffee only to throw them back up right before he has to head out. Puts on a pair of sunglasses even though it’s 7am and apparently cloudy out, a nice flashback to 2010 and how horrible life was before he had Isla to level him out. 

“Kendall and Gerri requested a meeting at noon,” his assistant tells him when he gets it. 

“That’s fine,” he tells her. Pauses a moment to decide whether he’s going to heave on her desk. “Keep everyone out of my face until then.”

He hears Karolina’s voice a little later, followed by animated whispering, but he doesn’t care right now what she needs or what drunken thing some photographer captured him doing last night. He just wants a little peace and quiet in which to regret every mistake he’s ever made since the sixth grade, Garrett Kennedy cajoling him into mooning their teacher that one time but then chickening out, Roman alone with his pants down, his pale little ass on display for Mrs. Sutherby. 

“You look like shit,” Frank says. Drops something on Roman’s desk that smells like food, Roman groaning, head buried in his arms, flat on his desk. “Did you drink the whole goddamn bar?”

“Wow, what a blast from the past,” he hears Kendall say. “Didn’t know we were doing Waystar retro day.”

“I’m sure someone has a coke spoon for you to borrow.” It’s a shitty thing to say, but Roman can’t bring himself to be sorry when everyone’s being an asshole. A Greek chorus of fucking sniping.

“Sorry I’m late,” he hears Gerri say, and yeah, he’s definitely not lifting his head off the desk now. 

“That’s okay,” Ken says. “The fallen soldier here was just about to give us his report.”

“They want pay transparency,” Roman says, hefting himself up just enough to see Kendall. “And they’re already ready to go on the union shit.” He hears Frank swear. “I got specific names and also, uh, some details about all the fuckery Lawrence pulled with the numbers. But you’re not going to like it. It’s mmm, bad.”

“How bad?” Gerri asks, and Roman doesn’t look at her, just keeps his eyes on his brother. 

“It’s _bad_ , dude. And I’m sorry to be right, but Frank is just going to give you three standard options, none of which you’ll like, and Gerri’s going to say layoffs because she always says layoffs, and none of it will work. We need to hive off the profit center, shutter the rest.”

Kendall winces, pacing in place a little here, Gerri and Frank already running the numbers.

“That’s a bitter pill,” Gerri says. 

“I don’t know,” Kendall hedges. 

“Take some time,” Roman says miserably. “Look at my notes. Maybe send some people down a few more rabbit holes.”

Karolina joins them at some point, clearing her throat when Kendall and Frank are mostly floating ideas back and forth to each other, all of it garbage.

“So I got a call from Vaulter’s HR,” Karolina begins. 

“Okay,” Roman says. Carefully opens the box of food that Frank brought him, a greasy burger and fries staring up at him. 

“How much of last night do you remember?”

“Fifty-fifty,” he admits. He wishes Karolina would just get to the point, skip this whole song and dance where they pretend like he’s not an overgrown child in an impeccably tailored suit. 

“Do you remember telling someone named Jason he was fired after he called Gerri a bitch?”

“Um,” Roman squints. He thinks he remembers part of that exchange, some idiot with no upper lip and a shitty beard saying shit about Gerri once Roman was drunk enough to forget that she apparently thinks he’s a joke. “I believe other words were also used that were… not particularly mannerly or gentlemanly, and I might have taken some offense on behalf of Waystar.”

“So is the final word that this Jason person is fired, or do we want to walk it back?”

“Give him the option of going through the three-month implicit bias course,” Gerri cuts in. “No one ever takes that option, and we can dodge any wrongful termination lawsuit. Have HR note it as voluntary separation.”

“Are you good with that?” Karolina asks him.

“No,” he says, feeling decidedly uncharitable now. “I’m not. Fuck that dude. I said he’s fired, so he’s fired.”

“Bro,” Kendall says, stepping in now. “Come on.”

The discussion goes on without him, Roman now slowly shoving fries in his face. He thinks it’ll all come back up but it’s better than dry heaving and anyway, he’s done talking for the rest of the day. 

Kendall gets pulled out, followed by Frank, and then it’s just Gerri and Karolina standing in his office, eyes trained on him as he starts to tackle his burger. 

“For the record, Hugo over in Cruises called me a bitch just last week,” Karolina announces, her tone sickeningly sweet. 

“Cool,” Roman mutters, mouth still half full. “Let’s fire him, too.” He feels a tad better but also strangely worse, grease mixing with the booze in his stomach. “He’s the one with the beady eyes and the shitty weasel face, right?”

“Uh huh.”

“Fuck that weasel, he’s the next to go.” He thinks he hears Gerri snort at that but he still doesn’t look at her and when she lingers behind, Karolina heading out, he grabs for his phone, placing a call to Shiv so he doesn’t have to talk to Gerri alone.

“Glad to hear you didn’t give yourself alcohol poisoning,” Shiv says, as Gerri slinks out of his office, a glance thrown over her shoulder, and Roman spins around in his chair.

“I have regrets,” he says. “But I’m hoping you managed to keep my kid alive, all her limbs intact.”

“Tom let her have four glasses of juice before breakfast,” Shiv admits. “Apparently I married someone who’s intimidated by a sixty-pound child.”

“Fantastic,” he drawls. “She took her medicine before school, right?”

“Yes,” Shiv says, snippy now. “I’m not completely useless with her. I have known her the entirety of her life.”

“Thank you for watching her,” he says, skipping all the obvious snarky rejoinders. “Buy you dinner this weekend.”

“I’m going back to DC tomorrow, but rain check.”

His assistant keeps everyone out of his as ordered and he manages to keep lunch down, get some work done before picking up Isla from school. 

“Are you heading out?” Frank asks him on his way out.

“Just grabbing Isla,” he says, though that’s probably an inane statement. Everyone knows his routine by now.

Isla is bouncing off the inside of the car when he picks her up, going a million different directions and no, clearly Shiv _didn’t_ make sure that his kid took her pill, but that’s fine. Nothing to do about it now except wave goodbye to Isla’s wrung out teacher through the window. 

“Are we going to work?” Isla asks him, and Roman smiles at that, almost feels like a human again.

“For a little while,” he says. “But I’ve actually been thinking about hiring a new person for you to hang out with at home. Someone like Lydia. You liked Lydia right, all those fun trips to the zoo in Japan?”

“But I like going to work,” Isla whines. “Can’t I hang out with someone at Waystar?”

“Sometimes things at Waystar get really boring,” he says, pulling a face here. “You don’t want to be bored, do you?”

She’s about to be out of school for the summer and he doesn’t want her hanging out at the office anymore than she already has been, eavesdropping on inappropriate conversations, hearing people say horrible things. He heard so much shit when he was her age, only half of it from his father, still remembers the first time he heard the word ’bastard’ because it was someone calling Logan that, no idea one of the Roy children was within hearing range.

“Maybe I can make it less boring,” Isla says, pleading now, and Roman hates this. Knows he’s to blame for clutching her like a security blanket, so rarely letting her out of his sight right after Grace died.

“Hi, Isla,” Gerri says, smiling when she runs into them in the hallway. 

“Hi!” Isla shouts, Roman fast marching her past Gerri’s office and down the hall, Isla twisting her body to look behind them.

“Yo, rabbit,” Ken says, poking his head in around dinner time. 

“Hey,” Roman says tiredly. “What’s up?”

“We put together a plan for Vaulter,” Ken says. “Some layoffs and a few cost cutting measures Frank came up with.”

“Cool,” Roman says, trying to keep his tone even here, no matter that he took a night away from his kid to get that intel and Kendall’s apparently just going to use it for rolling paper, expect him to clean up the ashes later, when it all torches. “Yeah, I’ll take a look.”

“Hey,” Ken says before he leaves. “That thing with you defending Gerri was pretty dope. I mean, I know you two butt heads, but she fought hard to get you on the Japan thing. Convinced me to send you rather than Frank.”

“Did she now,” Roman drawls. Watches Isla waving to someone through the glass wall, some kind of movement on the other side.

“Yeah,” Ken says, “and I know sometimes we’re on different sides of things, still duking it out, but you’re doing a lot for morale and I just…” His brother shrugs, looking helpless here, and Roman takes pity on him.

“Frank pointed out that Logan like, never fucking praised people, so I’m just trying to hand out gold stars where I can. Make sure people see that the new package deal is better than the previous tyrant.”

“The dynamic duo,” Kendall says, smiling a little now. “Kicking ass, taking names.”

“Yep,” Roman agrees. Doubts he sounds any more convincing than he feels.

. . .

Roman remembers that Lydia mentioned a daughter living in Connecticut, so he places a few calls, puts in a little charm, and with a week she’s agreed to be his full-time nanny in New York. 

“Maybe some travel occasionally,” he says. “If you’re okay with that.” And Lydia stares at him on the video call here, like no one's ever asked her that question or considered her preferences before. 

“That’s fine,” she says. “I’m used to traveling.”

“I’ll work on getting a second person to help over the summer,” he rushes to say, already worried that she’ll hate it. Just up and leave them in the lurch. 

“Mr. Roy, it’s fine,” Lydia says, and he really hates that she still calls him that. 

The next week goes by in a blur and he drops Isla off at her last day off school, tells her Lydia will pick her up and probably stay with her through dinner. 

“Love you, rabbit,” he says and kisses her, Isla pulling away and making a face.

“Rude,” he mutters when she disappears into her class. “Fucking rude.”

“You already here the latest shit that Stewy pulled?” Frank asks him almost the second he steps foot in the office.

“Yeah,” Roman says, rolling his eyes. “Some fucking best friend my brother picked out.”

“He’s going to want you on the proxy battle with Gerri,” Frank says, Roman getting squirrelly here. 

“Nah,” he bluffs. “I’m the big picture guy now. You’re still the trench warfare dude, all spry and wily. It’ll be you he throws into the snake pit.”

“I’ve got a thousand bucks that says you’re wrong.”

“Make it ten and I’m in.”

“Have a minute for us?” Ken asks Roman later, Gerri idling beside him.

“Actually no,” Roman lies. “I’m on a call in a sec. Catch ya later ?” He marches to his office, stopping in front of his assistant to say, “Get me on a call with someone, anyone. Keep me jammed up for the next few hours, okay?”

“Fun,” she drawls. Because apparently not even his assistant is scared of him. 

“Gerri needs you to sign this,” Eva says when she turns up at his door later, some Vaulter contracts in hand. “She also knows you’ve been avoiding her, so good luck with that.”

“I would never avoid your boss,” Roman breezes, though he’s asked Eva to give him a head’s up whenever Gerri's about to need him, precisely so he can duck her.

“I don’t know what’s going on, but I don’t like being in the middle,” she says now. “You’re starting to stress her out because she can never find you when she needs you.”

“Is this, like, bringing back memories of your parents’ divorce or something?”

“My parents are still married, you walking microaggression, and I mean it. I work for her, I can’t be in the middle of whatever game you’re playing.”

“No games,” he promises, Eva glaring at him, and Gerri turns up at his door a second later because apparently she’s summoned by someone mentioning her three times.

“I need you to help Chris,” Gerri says to Eva in a clipped tone and Eva only nods, disappearing back down the hall. “Anything I need to know about?”

“Nope,” Roman says, voice light. “Your underling was just reminding me that I’m kind of incompetent, so I think we’ve got all the usual bases covered.”

“Kendall wants you on the proxy battle,” Gerri says, frowning here. “We've been trying to grab you all day. Get you up to speed.”

“Okay,” he says. “I need to sign these contracts, but I’ll come find you in a bit.” She hovers here, obviously wanting something else, and he ignores her.

“I heard you got Lydia to relocate,” Gerri says. “Did she already start? I haven’t seen Isla today.”

“She did. No more pesky kids hanging around the office now.” He tilts his head in a way that’s clearly a dismissal, Gerri still standing in his doorway, watching him sign forms as he continues to ignore her.

He expects Isla to get excited when he trudges home, probably chatter a million words a minute about her last day of school and everything he missed this afternoon.

“Hey, rabbit,” he says, sticking his head in the family room, Isla and Lydia watching a movie.

“Hey,” Isla echoes but doesn’t get off the couch to hug him, eyes still on the TV when he lumbers over to sit beside her.

“Did you and Lydia have a good day?”

“Shh,” Isla hisses. “This is the best part.”

“Sorry,” Roman says. Rests his chin on her head, inhaling the smell of her hair as he closes his eyes.

. . .

He goes out on a blind date because Shiv won’t leave him alone, but it’s still too soon and he knows it’ll just be horrible. Drags his feet the whole time he gets ready.

“You look nice,” Lydia says and straightens his tie for him.

“Thanks,” he says. “Call me for any reason. Anything at all, okay?” 

“Goodbye,” Lydia shoos him out the door. “We’ll see you later.”

“Wow,” the chick says when he finds her at the end of the bar. “A tie. You’re wearing an actual tie.” 

She’s so tall when she stands up, he doesn’t know how he’d even reach to kiss her? Like, does she come with a fucking step stool or something? 

“The better to hang myself with, since this is already off to a rocky start.” She laughs at that, which is better than nothing, he guesses. 

They’re maybe ten minutes in when he checks his phone, hoping for something from Lydia, maybe work, but there’s nothing important, no excuse to leave, and the woman, Tabitha, smirks over her drink.

“If anyone is pulling the emergency call excuse, it’s me,” she tells him. “I’m only here as a favor to a friend who happens to owe your sister some kind of blood debt.”

“I’ve never been on the opposite end of charity,” Roman says, stopping short at the thought. “You think you can write this off somehow?”

“Let’s hope,” Tabitha says, and it’s awkward and painful for another ten minutes. But by the end they’re trading ridiculous stories, the kind of things you’d never tell someone you’re hoping to fuck. “And I think that guy is your brother-in-law now? But I don’t think Siobhan knows about that.”

“ _No way_ ,” Roman crows. “That’s fucking amazing.”

Shiv checks in the next morning, Roman trying to corral Isla into getting dressed when his phone buzzes with the text.

 _It was fine,_ he replies, which isn’t a lie. He’s not ready to date and Tabitha called him a ‘strange little man’ when they said goodbye, but honestly, he needs friends more than anything, a social life outside of fucking Waystar, and he can see hanging out with her again. Maybe listening to her stories about ex-girlfriends and whoever she’s currently hooking up. Live a little vicariously before going home to watch cartoons with his kid. 

“Good weekend?” Franks asks him during their morning one-on-one. 

“Not bad, actually.” Besides that weird non-date, he took Isla to the park, did some shopping for the second guest room that’s mostly been empty. A little nesting bullshit to fill the time, have an extra room ready for the company that never comes to visit. 

“Good, good,” Frank says, sounding weird, like back when he was Logan’s puppet, always on the verge of having to give Roman bad news, cushion a blow from his father. “Listen, this is going to be really hypocritical coming from me, given that I met my wife here.”

“Uh huh,” Roman says. 

“And I’m happy if you’re dating again because I know it’s hard after you lose someone.”

“Uh huh.” 

“But I really don’t think dating within the company is a great idea, especially not now, with everything going on.”

“Tabitha doesn’t have anything to do with Waystar.” Roman pulls a weird face, topping off his coffee. 

“Tabitha? Who’s Tabitha?”

“The person I went on a date with this weekend,” he says. “A disaster, by the way.” He stops. “Wait, who were you talking about?”

“Nothing,” Frank says, but only after the smallest hesitation, which means he’s fucking lying. 

“Stop bullshitting,” Roman orders. “You thought it was someone here, so what gives?”

“I walked in on a pretty unpleasant conversation between Gerri and Eva,” Frank shrugs. “There was clearly an accusation being thrown around and Gerri was on the warpath. She thinks Eva’s the reason you're always disappearing around a corner when she comes into a room.”

“Fucking _what_ ,” he grounds out, slamming his coffee cup down.

“Maybe I misunderstood,” Frank says, putting his hands up here. Already doing that pacifying shit he did with Logan. 

“She fucking _what_.”

“Roman,” Frank cautions, but he’s already barreling out the door and through the maze of glass corridors, people waving at him as he ignores them, spinning around a tight corner and into the largest conference room, two dozen people hard at work. 

“Hi,” Roman says in a loud voice. “Everyone who is not Gerri, please get the fuck out, right now.” People stop and stare, looking at each other here, and Roman thinks about throwing something through the glass partition, just shattering it around them. “Anyone standing here in thirty seconds is fired.”

“Roman,” Eva says, people around them frantically moving, grabbing cell phones and papers as Roman stands ten feet from Gerri, staring her down.

“Eva, on behalf of Waystar, please accept our apologies for the insinuation that’s apparently been lobbed in your direction.”

“Hey,” Eva placates, Roman still glaring at Gerri. “It’s fine, just a small misunderstanding.”

“That would be up to me to decide, so please, I’d like a word with your boss.”

“Something to say,” Gerri prompts when they’re alone, and dear God, he wants to scream in her impassive fucking face.

“I’m not my father,” Roman tells her. “I don’t fuck employees, I don’t try to fuck employees, and if I did - Jesus Christ, if I did - I would fucking expect the lead attorney to drag the person _with power_ by the balls, not the employee who’s being fucking harassed.” His voice is rising now and he doesn’t care, doesn’t care that everyone outside can hear every word he says because he remembers the year when all these glass partitions went up and he remembers why, and it still makes him fucking sick. “Do you require any further clarification on that matter? Maybe need to go through my text messages to staff?”

“I don’t believe so,” she pronounces carefully. Holds very, very still. 

“What’s going on?” Ken demands, barging through the door. “Why are we yelling in here?”

“Get out,” Roman tells him. 

“Fuck you,” Ken says. 

“Get out!” Roman shouts, Kendall looking between them before he backs up, slips through the door, standing outside with everyone else.

“I’m sorry you're just biding time until you get someone better as COO.” Gerri opens her mouth to day something, probably backpedal, but he talks over her, barrelling on. “But instead of avoiding you, I should have told you to get on with your job because I _am_ your boss now. So either deal with it or fucking quit.” 

“Are you asking for my letter of resignation?” she asks him after a long pause, and only after she’s cleared her throat. She sounds a little shaken, unlike herself, and Roman can’t even take joy in it because this is what Logan always reduced people to and he never wanted to follow in his dad’s shitty footsteps.

“I want you to do your job,” he says, gesturing wide here. “If you can’t do that under the present COO, then yes, by all means. Fuck off to some other means of employment.”

People get out of his way when he leaves the conference room, no one making eye contact, and he knows that he broke something just now, a fragile thing he’s been building for months, smashed open on the ground.

. . .

“We need Gerri to stay,” Kendall tells him over an early dinner at Per Se.

“I didn’t fire her,” Roman dismisses. Stabs some food with his fork. “Only told her to get her knife out of my back.”

“The Eva thing wasn’t real, right?” Ken asks, sounding nervous as fuck, and Roman sits up in his chair. “Gerri just got that wrong?”

“Fuck you,” Roman shakes his head slowly. Pulls the napkin off his lap and throws it on the table. 

“I have to make sure,” his brother defends, but Roman’s already standing up and walking away from the table. “Dude, don’t leave.”

Kendall sends him three text messages, two of them apologizing and another calling him an asshole, but Roman ignores it. Goes home and relieves Lydia early, Isla telling him all about the dance camp she started this week.

“And she jumped so high!” Isla says, describing her new teacher, and Roman smiles. Watches her practice in the family room, twirling and twirling until she flops down, exhausted on the floor. 

Things at work are tense and unpleasant for another two weeks, people avoiding him at all costs, half the staff worried Gerri is going to quit in the middle of a fucking proxy war, Gerri and Frank sniping back and forth everyday, Kendall giving him moody looks that Roman fucking ignores. He can’t even bring Isla in when he works on the weekends now because everything’s too hostile, and he knows that this is unsustainable and partly his fault. Everyone looking so fucking tired, Gerri’s team far and way the most miserable. 

He swallows his pride and gets Frank to broker a peace summit of sorts, Frank and Gerri coming over to the brownstone after dinner, Isla upstairs, watching TV with Lydia.

“Let’s try to keep this civil,” Frank cautions and Roman glares at him. Pours them all some whiskey before they sit down in the study. 

“This all started because I acted the way you told me to at Vaulter,” Gerri snipes immediately.

“It’s not acting if you mean the shit you spout,” Roman scoffs. “Just fucking own it. You think I’m an idiot who can’t do the job. That sucks, but no one’s going to fire you for having a fairly common opinion.”

“I don’t think that,” she says, closing her eyes and looking like she wants to scream. “Stop putting words in my mouth.”

“Impulsive,” he says. “Reckless. Those are your words, not mine.” 

“And you’re both of those things,” she says. “But that’s not the same thing as unfit for the job.”

“Guys,” Frank says lamely. 

“Well you certainly think I’m enough of a cum stain that I’d sexually harass one of your underlings.”

“Things happen when people work together,” she shakes her head. “Frank and I both met our spouses at work. I wasn’t implying you intimidated her, groped her in a closet.”

“There’s like an entire org chart between us and my last name is on the mantle, so her consent would be fucking sketchy at best.” He throws his drink back, standing up now. ”Did you just skip the whole ethics part of law school? Jesus Christ.”

“Oh, fuck off.”

“Guys,” Frank says again, waving his hands in a limp, awkward motion.

“Take a hike,” Roman tells him, and Frank looks at Gerri here. “What? Like I’m going to hit her? Please. She’s probably stronger than I am on top of being smarter.”

“Get out,” Gerri says, albeit gently, Frank’s heavy footsteps clomping away from the study and then the sound of the front door closing.

“You lied to me about Japan,” Roman says evenly. Stands up, coming over to top off her drink. “You said Kendall wanted me to go and you tried to talk him out of it.”

“I did lie,” she admits, motioning for him to keep pouring when he starts to pull the bottle away. “And I am sorry about that. But in my defense, we hadn’t clocked a lot of time together yet and I didn’t realize I could play it straight.” He waits, tries to swallow his urge to snap at her here. “I knew that we needed you over there. Which, I’ll point out here, is the opposite of thinking you’re a useless moron.”

He supposes she has a point there. A teeny, tiny one.

“I don’t like being handled,” he says in between sips of his drink. “And all you do is handle people.” She seems to consider that, settling a little heavier in the wingback chair she’s in.

“I’m a professional snake charmer. It’s my job, what I excel at. The problem is you’re not a snake and you’re forever surprising me.”

“But I tell you the truth,” he shakes his head. “I’m an asshole with like, zero filter, but you can trust me. I thought we had that going for us.”

“We do,” she breathes out. “At least we did. . . I’d like to get it back.” He watches her here, her posture relaxing, less guarded now. “I thought we made a good team and was pretty mystified when you started ducking me. Threw me off my game.”

“I hid under my own desk once,” he admits. He’s loitering beside her chair still, watching with amusement as her eyes go wide. “Eva didn’t give me a head’s up and my assistant couldn’t stall you. Fucking panicked when I heard your voice.”

“I’m more delighted by that than I should be.” Her mouth twitches a little before she pauses, draining half her glass. “I offered Eva a transfer out from under me. Maybe something at ATN. She turned it down.”

“She likes working for you,” he shrugs. “She gave me shit about dodging you, making your workday harder.” He shifts on his feet, feeling weird now that he’s just hovering next to her, but he doesn’t move away. ”That’s what walked you in on, the other week in my office.”

Gerri huffs out a long breath, blowing some hair out of her face. “Half my staff won’t look at me. I’ve never been the warm fuzzy type, but I’ve always had their respect and I think a good chunk of that’s gone because of how I handled things.”

“People avoid me in the hallways,” he commiserates. “Logan Roy II.”

“Not even close,” she stops him, brow creased with something like concern. “Roman, no. Don’t think that.”

Her gaze is soft, open, and he wonders if she deliberately chooses to wear glasses at work because her face looks so much less guarded without them here, her eyes more prominent, so startlingly blue.

“So,” he says. ”Should I conclude from this that you aren’t resigning?”

“Assuming you’ll still have me,” she allows. 

“Happily,” he nods. “We’ll just agree to a firm no bullshit rule from here on out.”

“That doesn’t extend to your brother, right? Because I can’t -“ He stops her with a hand to her arm, pulling it back immediately. Shakes his head instead as she stares up at him.

“Ken is Ken,” he says simply. “I know you have to handle him carefully. And it turns out I do too, so no worries there.”

“You’re right about the Vaulter shit,” she says with a cringe. “It can’t be salvaged.”

He shrugs, finishing the rest of his whiskey. “Not my call.”

“It should have been you,” Gerri says now, staring at him in that searching way she sometimes has. “If I’d known during the Board vote what I know now, I would have backed you, not Kendall.”

“I wasn’t ready then,” he says. “And I didn’t want it. Still don’t.”

“A pity,” she sighs.

Maybe she’s looking for a team up here, knock Ken out, but Roman has nothing to offer her besides the job she’s already doing and his good will going forward. 

Even if he wanted the top spot, he doesn’t have it in him to stab his own brother in the back. 

“Just trying to raise my kid, sleep through the night,” he admits with a weary smile. “Maybe figure out how to date again.”

“Are you dating?” she asks, voice light. Companionable even. 

“One date,” he says, “and it didn’t go well… It’s too soon.” 

It’s weird to think it’s been a little over a year, but it also feels like forever since he last heard Grace’s voice, even on a voicemail. He’s has trouble cueing it up in his mind sometimes. Will think about it at night when he’s in bed and can't remember the way she’d say something, and that nags at him in the daylight now, a phantom pain he can never chase down. 

He doesn’t want to think about all the things Isla’s probably forgotten about her mother.

“It takes time,” Gerri says, standing up now. 

“How long did it take you?” She doesn’t answer, only gives him a slight smile as he walks her to the door. 

“Tell Isla I said hello.”

“I will,” he promises. Feels a strange desire to do something here, like maybe hug her or something, but that’s weird and inappropriate, so of course he won’t. 

“Truce?” she asks, sticking her hand out. 

“Truce,” he nods. Takes her hand firmly in his, a smile on her face as he holds it, their palms pressed together.

. . . 


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> TW for mention of mild (non-Covid) illness.
> 
> May this year be such a distant memory that people read this note, years from now, and wonder why the fuck a fic writer would need to TW the flu.

“Rabbit,” Roman says, looking up from his computer. “ _Isla._ ” 

“I’m not doing anything,” she argues, still dancing around his office, her body slamming into a table, the plant his assistant struggles to keep alive now teetering precariously. 

“Honey,” he takes a frustrated breath. “I’ve really gotta read through this in the next few minutes, so just sit down, okay? Lydia will be here to pick you up in a little while and then you can bounce to your heart’s content.” 

“Frank!” Isla shouts when Frank turns up a few minutes later, and Roman hears the gush of air that Frank exhales when Isla rushes him. 

“Take it easy, rabbit. Frank’s old and fragile.” Frank glares at him for that, but none of Frank’s usual retorts are kid appropriate and Roman knows it. Smirks as he keeps reading. 

“Not at all,” Frank says. “I just wasn’t expecting rabbits.” 

“I have dance today!” Isla announces, Roman frantically scrolling, trying to make use of the temporary distraction to finish reading the thing Gerri sent him.

“And what a nice color that tutu is. Goes great with that ketchup stain on your shirt.” 

“What?” Roman says, looking up now. “Where?” She didn’t even _eat_ anything with ketchup today. 

Frank points it out and Roman frowns because Frank’s a dumbass and that isn’t ketchup, it’s blood. 

“It doesn’t hurt,” Isla complains when Roman hustles her toward the bathroom, already trying to figure out what she did to hurt herself. 

“We’re just gonna take a peek,” he promises because he can never be sure with her. Remembers the two times he broke bones as a kid and didn’t realize until later, no one taking him seriously when he finally stopped playing, complained about the pain. “See, that’s not so bad.” 

There’s a little scratch on her belly. Nothing deep, just a long, thin line that bled a little, probably where she caught the corner of the table while she was busy spinning around. He has her shirt off and should probably rinse it, no way Lydia will have time to stop for a change of clothes without making Isla late. 

“Everyone alright in there?” he hears Gerri ask, the bathroom door cracked open as Roman tries to figure out how to get the stain out. 

“Just some emergency laundry,” Roman says, trying not to sound as stressed out as he feels. “We’ll be fine.” 

“That doesn’t sound promising,” Gerri says. “Need any help?” 

“Only if you know how to get blood out of fabric in a fucking hurry.” Isla’s sitting on the closed toilet now, kicking her legs back and forth, and she shrieks with delight when Gerri sticks her head in, Roman at the sink, frantically rubbing at the spot. 

“Cold water,” Gerri says. “No, don’t rub it like that, you’ll only make it set.” 

“I’ve got it,” he defends. 

“Here,” she insists, pushing him away from the sink. 

He feels fucking helpless, doesn’t even know how to get a stain out of a shirt, but Gerri shows him what she’s doing, her movements practiced, and a minute later she hands him the top, Roman ringing out the bottom half, water dripping into the sink, a little getting on the floor. 

“Thank you,” he says. “Sorry I’m behind. We had an incident.” 

“You alright?” Gerri asks Isla, Isla nodding vigorously. “We need to call a doctor? Have something amputated?” 

“No!” Isla shouts, her voice even louder in the small, tiled room. “I was just practicing my dancing and - and I bumped into the table but I kept dancing because Ms. Martinez always says to keep dancing if we mess up.” 

“That’s very good advice,” Gerri says, Roman moving to pull the partially damp shirt back over Isla’s head. 

“It’s cold!” 

“It’ll dry quickly,” he promises. “It’s hot outside. It might feel good in a few minutes, like jumping in the pool.” 

“It’s _cold._ ” 

He’s pretty sure Gerri smirks before she ducks back out of the bathroom, no apparent desire to be caught in the battle of wills. 

Isla sulks until Lydia picks her up, doesn’t say goodbye to Frank or even Gerri, Roman a little relieved when his kid leaves, which probably makes him some kind of monster. 

“You remember when you broke your ankle and didn’t tell anyone until the next day?” Frank asks him. 

“I told someone,” Roman corrects him. Doesn’t want to get into the story, talk about how his mother told him to stop being dramatic when he cried, to just have one of his au pairs put some ice on it. 

“I haven’t seen Kendall today,” Gerri interjects. “Do we need to wait for him?”

“He won’t be in,” Roman says. “He has the kids today, so you’re stuck with me.”

“Okay,” Gerri says, clearly papering over some level of frustration here, and he doesn’t blame her. 

Ken pulled himself off the calendar at the last minute without telling anyone else. Probably forgot again it’s his weekend to take the kids, Rava already making noise now about revisiting the custody agreement if Ken’s not actually going to parent. But a lot of things are going to have to wait for CEO’s approval now and with the lack of notice, people are bound to be annoyed, all of them already hustling around, putting in long hours.

“Let’s just run through everything,” Roman scratches his head. “I can call him later for the shit that requires his sign off.”

They go through a dozen items related to the Vaulter restructure, the proxy fight, and some nasty shit that might be picking up speed over in Cruises. 

“Do you want to pull Tom in?” Frank asks. 

“Like he gives a fuck now that he’s over at ATN,” Roman pulls a face. “No, I’ll let him stay Cyd’s problem. See if we can do some digging without it getting back to him.”

“Do you trust Hugo?” Gerri asks.

“What do you think,” Roman drawls and she nods, takes a breath before she writes something down. “Let’s let Hugo think he’s being looped in though. Might need to wipe our shoes on him if we up step in another pile of shit.”

Karolina knocks on his door, opening it when he nods at her, then stays, hovering awkwardly at the threshold.

“Frank doesn’t have cooties,” Roman promises. “We just had him checked. Might as well come in, grab a seat.”

Karolina shakes her head, coughing here, Gerri stopping whatever treatise she’s writing to look up. 

“You okay?” Frank asks. 

“Fine,” Karolina waves him off, “I just don’t want to get any of you sick.”

“Go home,” Roman says immediately. Instinctively holds his breath a little. “Go now.”

“I don’t feel that under the weather,” she argues, but her face is flushed like she drank an entire bottle of wine with breakfast and no, no way in hell is Roman getting sick with the flu.

“Go home before you infect the whole floor. I fucking mean it, we can’t afford to have the entire executive suite out sick.” Frank looks at him quizzically once she’s gone, Roman spinning around in his chair. “Her wife and kid both had the flu last week,” he explains. “No way I want that shit in the office.”

It’s another week before Roman turns up to a meeting where Frank’s hacking his head off, Kendall already out with a high fever, plus three of the assistants and four people in Legal.

“Go home!” Roman raises his voice, kicking at Frank’s chair, pushing it away from the table with his shoes. “Why the fuck do you guys think it’s okay to infect everybody else with your viral plague? Go, get away from me. Don’t breathe on anyone on your way out.”

The two days after that are miserable, flu going through the staff like a bulldozer, Roman not letting anyone into his office except Gerri, the two of them constantly fixing shit while something else catches on fucking fire. 

“He turned down the ten million,” Gerri says, glasses off, rubbing her eyes. “I’m starting to think there’s no number.”

“Everyone has a number,” Roman shakes his head. “Let’s go up to fifteen, see which of his ideals shake loose then.”

“I’ll call Kendall,” she says.

“Good luck,” he replies. “He’s a real cry baby when he’s sick and his fever was 103 when he went home.”

“Like the most boring zombie apocalypse imaginable,” Gerri sighs, rising here, and it’s the first thing to make him smile since his kid did an impression of Wambsgans while sucking down her cereal.

But at least Gerri’s not sick, that’d be a nightmare. 

“How does an accountant turn down ten million?” Ken coughs into the phone, Roman eating dinner at his desk, won’t even manage to make it home for bedtime because he has too much shit to wade through before he can leave. 

“Gerri doesn’t think there’s a number,” Roman says. “We should be prepared for that.”

“If she’s right then we’re fucked on the proxy vote. There’s only so much of this shit we can blame on dad and the old guard. Not without doing a cull of half the C-suite.”

“It won’t come to that,” Roman says, shifting his phone to his other ear here. He doesn’t like that Kendall’s even raising the possibility of going all murderhouse, hopes it’s just because he’s sick and in a piss poor mood. “Even if it did, smearing executive blood on our door won’t help ward off the angle of fucking death. Not when Waystar’s still helmed by two Roy’s.”

“We’ll see,” Kendall says, but then he coughs so hard he apparently makes himself puke, Roman abruptly hanging up.

“Fucking gross.”

Frank comes back but still looks like shit, Roman demanding that someone take Frank’s temperature, threatening to kick him out if he came back in with a fever.

“Hypochondriac,” Franks grouses, but he doesn’t have a fever, so Roman lets it go.

“Gerri says she’ll have to catch up with you later,” Eva informs him before lunch. “But I have a briefing for you about that roller coaster mishap yesterday.”

“Okay,” Roman sighs, a little weirded out that Gerri’s blowing him off, but he knows it’s probably nothing. They’ve been chugging along for weeks now without a single issue.

“I’ll float your questions to her,” Eva says when they wrap up, Roman taking a minute to FaceTime with Isla. Won’t take the risk of bringing her into the office with all these fucking germs flying about. 

“Lydia says we can go to the aquarium tomorrow.”

“I think the aquarium sounds awesome,” he smiles. “Wish I could go with you.”

She’s supposed to have friends over for a sleepover tonight, Lydia staying over to help him shepherd the pack of kids in the morning, and the idea of a gaggle of children is so exhausting he can’t even think about what he’ll go home to later.

“I need Gerri,” Frank tells him later. “But her door is closed and her assistant keeps saying she’s on a call.”

“How long?” 

“Three hours now.”

“Damn it,” Roman closes his eyes. Hefts himself up, already dead on his feet.

“What?” Frank asks.

“You’re fucking oblivious. You know that, right?” Frank calls after him again, but Roman ignores him. Doesn’t know how his dad ever got anything done if he relied on Frank’s shittastic ability to parse people.

Gerri’s assistant puts up a good show of resistance and Roman doesn’t threaten her, knows she’s only trying to follow orders.

“I promise to tell her you put up a fight,” he allows, maneuvering around her. Knocks on Gerri’s door twice before opening it. 

“This is a bad time,” Gerri says immediately, her cheeks flushed, forehead pale. “Find you later?”

The temperature in the office is cranked way up and she has two cardigans draped over her, so either she has the chills or she’s in the middle of the shittiest cleanse imaginable.

“Doing some hot yoga in here? Trying to get the old blood pumping?”

“As much I normally enjoy your little riddles,” she says and then pauses, probably trying not to cough because her voice sounds like she’s taken up chain smoking. “I don’t have time right now, I’m sorry.”

“You have a fever.” He’s pointing out the obvious, but if she’s going to lie right to his face, this is the conversation they’re stuck having.

“I’m fine.” 

“You promised not to bullshit me,” he reminds her, and she has the decency to look guilty here.

“I can’t leave,” she says miserably. “I haven’t let anyone in and I’m not moving around the office, but there’s too much that needs my attention.”

“Go home,” he tells her. 

“Roman, I really can’t.”

“Too bad that you don’t have a choice because I’m still your boss.” She glares at him for that, but it’s much less effective when her eyes look glazed over, clearly having trouble focusing on his face. “I’ll freely admit that you getting sick is a death blow. The thing I was dreading the most.”

“Is this you convincing me to leave?” 

“It’s me massaging your ego,” he says, pitching his voice. “A little narcissistic cushion to my kicking you the fuck out.” She starts piling her things together, Roman about to push off when he notices she looks a bit unsteady on her feet. “You okay?”

“Fine,” she dismisses, but he doesn’t believe her. Decides to brave the rampant contagion of her office in order to help her pack her things.

“You’re going to get sick,” she tuts. “Go away, I promise to leave.”

“Why does everyone over the age of sixty think it’s okay to go around spewing their germs at work?” he asks, ignoring her. “Another fun consequence of your generation never getting taught anything about bodily consent.”

“I’m only fifty-nine,” she corrects him. Sounds churlish here.

“Well, that makes a huge fucking difference,” he needles. Helps her with her jacket when she seems to struggle. “I’ll tell AARP to hold off on your swag.”

“You were always my least favorite of Logan’s children.”

“Nice try,” he smiles. “That honor always belongs to Connor, with literally everyone.” 

She moves to leave the office and he doesn’t really want to be around her germs any longer than he already has, but what if she passes out and no one’s with her?

“You really don’t trust me to leave,” she grumbles as he walks her to the elevator. Even follows her in, holding his breath during the long ride down. 

Her car is already waiting but her dipshit driver is slow to come around, so Roman opens the door for her.

“Get rest,” he urges. 

“Fine,” she says, but he knows she’s just going to ignore him, stay up for hours, working on shit from home.

“Thank you for making her go home,” Eva says when he comes back up, and he salutes her as he strolls past. 

“I won’t tell her that you said that,” he promises. She’s still one of his favorites but he tries not to be too chatty with her, fuel any speculation that might be still floating in the air. He feels shitty that he put her in the middle of his spat with Gerri, guilty that she got steamrolled because of it, no matter that she handled it with grace. 

It’s getting late when Ken copies him on a long email chain between him and Gerri, at least two dozen detailed messages initiated by her, time stamps starting late last night and going all the way through today, no cessation after she went home. 

“Westchester AARP,” Gerri answers when he calls her cell, and he snorts out the Red Bull he just sipped.

“Cute,” he says, wiping his face with his hand. “And very brave, for a woman ignoring her boss’s order to get some rest.”

“I’m trying,” she lies, and he makes a farting noise into the phone.

“We only have one of you,” he says, appealing to her ego again. “You aren’t replaceable. Please think of Waystar.”

“I’m not a man,” she sighs into the line. “You can’t just fellate me until I roll over.”

“I would never presume to do so,” he says. Knows she’s probably rolling her eyes right now. “Merely reminding the company babysitter that she should take care of herself, so she can get right back to wiping all our asses.”

“Thank you for that repellent image. Do you need anything else?”

“Nope. Just signing your ‘get well’ card before I pass it off to Frank. Gonna let him color in the hearts I used to dot all my I’s.” 

She hangs up on him after that, which is deserved, and he has his assistant send some gourmet consommé to her home, even refrains from attaching a shitty message to the delivery. 

He forgets about the sleepover until he gets home, five little girls shrieking and giggling the second he walks in, and he nods for Lydia to head upstairs, get some rest while she can.

“Are you sure, Mr. Roy?”

“I have work to do anyway,” he says, taking off his jacket. He goes into the family room, immediately swarmed by kids who are loud and annoying, not nearly as interesting to listen to as Isla. 

He manages to get some work done once they all go to sleep, his bedroom door propped open in case something happens, but the whole house is quiet as he wades through messages from his brother and a pile of bad news from Karolina. Sends a text to Tabitha, asking about the date she had. Tells her he’ll have to bail on their lunch plans.

 _Thank you for the soup_ , Gerri texts him a little before midnight, and he wishes she would rest but knows better than to push it.

It’s tempting to text her something snide back, in line with their usual patter, but she looked so sick today and he remembers now how she helped with that stain in Isla’s dance top, didn’t him feel like an idiot for not knowing how to do such a simple thing.

_Least I could do for my favorite lawyer._

She doesn’t respond and he thinks that’s better, a sign that she’s getting some rest after all.

. . .

The Cruises shit explodes while Roman’s out sick, too high of a fever to even stand up, dizzy every time he tries to open his laptop and stare at the screen.

“You aren’t fungible,” Gerri says to him over the phone, and he knows she's getting her rocks off on the turn about. Clearly showing off her superior vocabulary by using a word like ‘fungible’.

“The other kids must have fucking hated you for winning the spelling bee, year after year.”

“I came in second one year,” she replies, and he can hear street noise, the sound of traffic and angry horns. 

“The loss must haunt you,” he says. Thinks about drinking some of the Sprite that’s on his nightstand, but the can must be warm and flat by now. Doesn’t seem worth the effort.

“Get rest,” she says, kinder now. “Frank is depressing and moody without his twitchy little shadow.”

“Si, el comandante.” He hangs up after that, doesn’t have any energy left in him to talk. 

He sleeps a lot, gets his housekeeper and assistant to help Lydia so she’s not on non-stop Isla duty.

“But I want Daddy!” he hears her shriek at some point, and there’s nothing he can do, no way to hold her without getting her sick, and that feels even worse than everything at Waystar blowing up in his absence.

“On a scale of 1 to 10,” Gerri says when she calls him again, “how close are you to dying?” 

“Mm, maybe a 6,” he blinks, trying to see the time. “What’s up?” 

“I’m on my way over,” she announces and hangs up, but he thinks maybe he dreamed that, drifts back to sleep again.

He wakes up to a knock on his bedroom door and his housekeeper's voice, tentatively announcing that Gerri’s here to see him. He doesn’t know what to do, is in his boxer briefs and nothing else, so he just pulls the blankets up to his chin. Calls through the door that it’s fine.

“You look horrible,” Gerri says immediately.

“Don’t come in, you’ll get sick.” 

“I’m the one who got you sick, you can’t give it back to me.”

“So you’re a fucking doctor now?” He doesn’t care that he sounds petulant. 

“Nope,” she says, hovering near the door she just closed behind her. “Still your favorite lawyer.” Should have known that being nice to her would come back to bite him in the ass.

“What’s going on that you needed to see the COO in his under things?” he pivots. He’s starting to feel a little more clear headed, which means he’s also starting to panic about whatever she’s about to tell him.

“I have some feelers out to confirm, but I think we're about to get an invitation from Congress. Be asked to turn our heads and cough in front of the whole country.”

“Fuck me,” he sits up. 

“We need to start getting ready,” she leans against the door. “Decide who we want to take a shit in the national latrine.”

“I don’t want you or Frank going,” he says immediately. “My brother-in-law and that fink Hugo can show up. Hang them out like piñatas for those pompous asshats. Always sticking their dicks in our super PAC money and then kicking us out before breakfast.”

“I appreciate the loyalty,” she says here, “but Ken will want it to be me.”

“Wait, wait,” he says, stops to chug his gross as shit soda because his throat is dry, throbbing now. “Why did you rush over rather than calling me?”

He watches Gerri take a beat, obviously debating something, and he wishes she would just spit it out because his head is spinning and it’s hard enough to focus on her face. 

“You said no bullshit,” she says, and he impatiently motions for her to get on with it. “Roman, I think Kendall’s falling off the wagon.”

“He just got over the flu,” he defends, still a knee jerk reaction to make excuses for his brother. All those years of fishing him out of shitty parties and explaining away his behavior, trying to cover to their parents and then later Rava, giving up when Ken couldn’t get it together for his own kids. But he sees the way Gerri freezes here, her face shuttering up, and he knows he has to backpedal. Holds up a hand in apology. “Old enabling habits die hard.” He breathes out, holding eye contact even though he’s really fucking dizzy now. “Tell me what’s going on.”

She tells him that Ken’s doing all the old shit again, coming in late and being fucking moody, disappearing to the bathroom and then magically looking and sounding better. Everyone having to judge his mood and energy level before they go into his office, Frank already discouraging people from taking things directly to Ken.

“He was always functional enough when it’s just cocaine,” she tilts her head. “But I worry about what happens if he starts dabbling in the other shit.”

“Rava’s gonna rip his balls off,” Roman presses his hands to his eyes. He needs to close them for just a minute, make the room stop spinning.

“Are you okay?” she asks, and she sounds so openly worried, he wants to rip Ken’s balls off himself now. 

“My brother’s relapsing while running the family company. No. No, I’m not okay. I need to get to the office, start triaging.”

“Triage from bed,” she says flatly. “You look like you’re going to pass out and you’re not even standing up.”

“I’ll get a doctor to give me a steroid shot or some shit,” he says. Pulls the covers back over himself when he realizes Gerri’s staring at his chest, a frown creasing her forehead. “Ride the fucking dragon or whatever, it’ll be fine.”

“Absolutely not,” she says. “I’m already corralling one strung out figurehead. We don’t need two.”

“You didn’t even send me reciprocal soup,” he whines dramatically, flopping back in the bed and closing his eyes again. “Should have pegged you for the sixty-eight type of gal.”

“I don’t know what that last part means and I’m not asking,” she says, and he can hear her opening the door, Isla’s voice immediately demanding her attention. “Your father needs his rest,” Gerri says, a hiccuped sob Isla’s immediate reply. “Why don't you show me your dolls? I imagine there are some new ones I haven’t seen.”

. . .

Roman goes back to work the next day because his fever is gone and he can stand on his own two feet, the universe rewarding his bravery with Ken going AWOL all morning, not even answering texts, and Roman wants to put his fist through a wall.

“We have a shareholder call in twenty minutes,” Frank says, clearly panicking.

“Gerri can prep me,” Roman says, trading texts with Shiv. It was always him that fished their brother out of whatever drug dumpster he ended up in, but he can’t now, not when he has to do two jobs at once, and it’s annoying to talk his sister through it because she would already know this shit if she’d ever cared enough to step out of her own life for five fucking seconds.

“The staff’s going to be looking to you,” Gerri says. “If you panic, they’ll panic.”

“Okay,” he breathes out. Sends Frank away to do shit because he can feel the dude’s anxiety pulsating and it’s distracting, not nearly as helpful as Gerri’s steady, decisive voice. 

Ken’s always been more popular with the shareholders, ever the golden boy even when he’s had a coke spoon jammed up his nose, but Roman can play the angles better than he used to, knows he has more charm in his pinky than all of his siblings put together. Plus he has Gerri now. 

“Any last minute questions?” she asks him. 

“Wanna run away to the Riviera?” She blinks at him behind her glasses, mouth set in a line. “Maybe white trash it up in Mexico? Do body shots off strangers?”

The call connects and he’s a little fumbling at first, but Gerri props him up where needed and he manages to make a few old geezers laugh right off the bat.

“We have a plan,” Gerri says when discussion turns to the possibility of Congressional hearings. 

“Gerri has a plan for everything,” Roman adds. Never a bad idea to plant some seeds, mount a proactive defense. 

“Should we look forward to seeing Ms. Kellman’s lovely face in DC?” someone asks. One of the pervy ones, if Roman recalls correctly, and Gerri grimaces, Roman worried now that his last comment has backed her into a corner.

“You don’t send a thoroughbred to a hay eating contest,” he interjects before Gerri can say anything, make any commitments. “She’ll do all the prepping and we’ll see what shakes out first.”

There’s a little push back there and Gerri obfuscates until the conversation shifts, Roman kicking it over to Frank for a presentation of some earnings projections. 

“Sorry,” Roman says, Gerri leaning over to make sure they’re muted.

“For what?”

“The horse thing.”

“It worked,” she dismisses, unfazed. “You knew your audience.”

They get through to the afternoon mostly unscathed; Shiv finds Kendall high in some theater chick’s apartment in Greenpoint; they tell the staff he relapsed with the flu and needed fluids. Roman doesn’t think anyone will really believe that particular packet of bullshit, but it’s all he’s got, still needs to get home and relieve Lydia before she gets so tired she thinks about quitting. Feels guilty about that now because everyone else will have to push on, work late into the night.

“Alright,” he rubs his face sometime after six o’clock. “Everybody pack up their shit. We’ll work at my place.”

“We’re all a little old for a sleepover.” Frank says, and Roman sees Karolina smile at that, the fucking traitor. 

“Ha ha,” he rolls his eyes. He tells Karolina to bring her kid too if she wants. Hears her on the phone, taking to someone in Polish after that, probably her wife. “I have martini ingredients,” he tells Gerri sweetly. "Your loved ones will be there, too.”

Frank laughs at that and Gerri flips them both off, a hodgepodge of staff assembling at the brownstone later, the executive suite turning up first, Frank helping himself to leftovers in the fridge and then grabbing himself a beer.

“Should we call Karl?” Gerri asks, accepting the martini Roman hands her.

“Fuck Karl!” Isla pipes up, Karolina and Gerri appearing very careful not to react here, Roman and Frank already pointing fingers at each other.

“You said that just last week,” Roman hisses, Frank shaking his head.

“You say it as often as you say ‘hello’!” 

“Fuck Karl!” Isla shouts, louder this time, Gerri spinning away from them all, probably trying not to scoff.

“Isla, honey, we don’t say that,” Roman says. Does the kind of hypocritical dance he always told himself he’d never do.

“But Gerri and Frank say it all the time,” Isla argues, and Roman feels vindicated, tickled by the revelation. 

“When you’re as old as Gerri you can say it,” he tells her. “But not before then.”

“How old is that?” Isla whines and Roman pivots to look at Gerri here, no matter that he knows the answer. 

“Old enough to know better,” Gerri says, gripping her martini, and Karolina studiously looks down at her cell phone, texting away. Probably telling her wife she’s glad she didn’t bring their kid over because this is already a shitshow.

It’s a little chaotic at first. Neither the office or study or big enough for everyone, so they’re spread across two rooms, Karolina and Gerri holding court in the study with all the lawyers, Frank camped out Roman’s desk in the office, Roman sprawled out on the office floor, getting up every so often to check on Isla, cuddling her a little before getting her ready for bed. He watches tiredly as she brushes her teeth, laughs when he pulls popcorn out of her hair.

“Did you even eat any of it?” he smiles as she ducks away from him, and he knows the family room is probably a wreck, popcorn butter stuck to every surface. 

“She’s getting so tall,” Karolina says when he pops into the study to touch base. He’s seen pictures of her son, knows he’s short and scrawny like he was, probably gets picked last for every dodgeball game.

“Like a fucking weed,” he agrees. “She’ll end up taller than me.”

“Wouldn’t take much,” Eva chimes in and a smattering of people chuckle, one side of Gerri’s mouth curling up as she reads whatever dire shit is populating her laptop screen.

“In my own home,” he feigns distress, holding his chest. Settles back in the office with Frank a few minutes later, two beers in his hand. 

Kendall texts him when they’re wrapping things up, most of the staff already dismissed, and Roman swipes away the notification without reading it. Is too angry to try to process whatever stream of bullshit his brother’s presently sending his way. 

“When do you want to bring your brother-in-law in for prep?” Gerri asks.

“Next week,” Roman yawns. “Shiv’s out of town then, so that’s better. He won’t have her to strategize with.”

“Do you need us to step in so you can take a step back?” Frank offers. “Not have to wear it with Shiv?”

“You mean use you as a surrogate like my fucking father did?” Roman says, a little prickly. But he doesn’t mean it, he’s just tired. “No, I’ll be my own flack jacket, thank you.”

“If you’re sure,” Gerri says, sounding concerned here. Probably worried that another family power struggle is rapidly emerging. 

It’s just the three of them now, Karolina having slipped out a minute ago, and Roman feels a tightness in his chest; anxiety steadily mounting about Cruises and the takeover, everything Ken said when he was out sick. The word ‘cull’.

“We should let you sleep,” Frank says, packing his stuff up, Gerri still typing away, eyes a little bloodshot behind her glasses. 

“What aren’t you telling us?” Gerri asks, when it’s down to just the two of them, and Roman realizes now that she maneuvered to get the alone time. Made a show of working until the minute Frank was out of sight.

“If shit gets nasty in DC, I think my brother would consider a few blood sacrifices. Bill certainly, but maybe more than that.”

“Frank and I have been through this before,” she replies. Doesn’t sound surprised, likely knew all along that the odds of two Roy’s remaining loyal were astronomically low.

“You should protect yourselves.” He’s on the floor of the study, looking up at her face, her eyes tracking the movement of his hand as he runs his fingers over the rug beneath him. Still a fidgety fuck, no matter the meds and the therapy and thirty-eight years of trying to find some fleeting comfort inside his own skin. “Protect yourselves, not Waystar.”

“Maybe it won’t come to that,” she says, and he knows it’s her way of offering comfort. A placating lie neither of them believe.

“You’ll have the loyalty of the COO,” he promises. Knows how many empty pledges she’s been offered in the past. Can’t fault her at all if she doesn’t believe the words he’s saying now, no matter the polite smile she bestows upon him here. 

“And you’ll have ours,” she tilts her head. Makes it sound casual, like she’s commenting on the chance of rain.

He holds her gaze. Nods once.

. . .

Kendall is contrite and conciliatory on Monday, and Roman thinks maybe a small slip isn’t the worst thing. Ken’s always on his best behavior after he falls off the wagon, working his bullshit steps and trying to make amends, and maybe it’s crass to think of that cycle in terms of relative advantage but Roman’s been through it too many times already. Had to explain away Ken’s coked out behavior on Isla’s third birthday, Rava ushering all of the kids into another room, Grace a little stoned, not exactly of much help. 

He already knows his kid’s going to be in therapy the rest of her fucking life. Just tries his best not to pile on anymore damage, be there for Isla when it matters. 

“How’s his mood today?” he asks Gerri. Usually huddles with her right after he meets with Frank, but Frank’s on a call now, so he sees her first. 

“We’re already up to two apologies,” she rolls her eyes. 

“That’s good,” he says. “Wait an hour before you bring him anything and he’ll sign off on whatever you want. Probably give you his kids.” 

“No thanks,” she says quickly. 

“You really don’t like kids, do you?” he chuckles. Sees Karolina hovering outside his door and holds up one hand to her, motioning that he needs five minutes. 

“I raised my own,” she says, that tone she uses when she’s annoyed but hiding it. “Isn’t that enough?” 

“My mistake,” he says, trying to smooth it over. “Thank you for always being nice to mine, even though you don’t really have a choice.” 

“I have a choice,” she assures him, heading toward the door. “She just falls under the heading of children who don’t bug the fuck out of me.” 

“She is a fun little weirdo,” Roman beams. Doesn’t care that he sounds like every sappy telephone commercial ever made, he fucking loves his kid. 

“Not unlike her father,” Gerri says on her way out, Roman taking a beat to consider those words. 

“Thanks for everything the other day,” Ken says when Roman meets up with him. 

“Sure,” Roman says between sips of coffee. “But let’s not make it a habit, alright?” 

“No,” Kendall shakes his head. Looks guilty as fuck. “No, dude, I’m really sorry.” 

“It’s cool,” Roman shrugs. Starts going down the list of shit they need him to sign off on. 

“We need Gerri in DC if the Congressional hearings happen,” his brother says, and Roman pretends to consider it, pulling a face. 

“Gerri?” he scratches his head. “Like, throw the token woman at it?” 

“She’s head Counsel,” Ken pushes back. “It needs to be her. You’re the first to admit she never takes a false step. She’ll be solid under pressure.”

“Well yeah,” Roman says, “obviously she won’t choke. But like, it’s not just about Congress, right? Whoever goes is going to get diddled in front of the whole country, get the chance to win over some hearts and minds. Only Gerri comes off as cold?” 

“We don’t need people to want to fuck her,” Ken frowns, and Roman squirms in his chair at that. Doesn’t know why his brother has to be so fucking crude. “She’s reliable, steady under fire. People will believe her.” 

“If she were a dude,” Roman drawls. “But Gerri has that whole unapproachable, smart thing going and half of America fucking hates that - coincidentally enough, the half we’ve been selling propaganda to for decades. Doesn't how many multisyllabic words she uses if people still fucking hate her.” 

“Fuck,” Kendall says now. “So what’s our play, fucking Tom and his word vomit?” 

“Midwesterner with an all-American jaw. It plays better. We just have Gerri prep the hell out of him for weeks, give him a PR enema for days on end.” 

“So Tom,” Ken repeats, nodding now, and something loosens a little in Roman’s chest. 

“Tom’s good,” Roman says. Makes it sound like he’s only agreeing and this was all Ken’s idea. 

_It’s Tom_ , he texts Gerri and Frank a few minutes later, Gerri sending back a thumb’s up. 

. . . 

“Fuck,” Roman says, when Tabitha shows up at his door in a black silk dress.

“Never,” she smiles. “I have a height requirement.” 

“No, dude. I mean I fucked up,” he says, her face already falling. “Didn’t put your thing on my calendar and I have staff coming over in ten minutes.” 

“So you forgot about me,” she says, clearly annoyed, and Roman can’t blame her because he’s already bailed twice now, is no doubt the worst wingman in history. “I can’t just show up to the gallery alone. She’ll think I’m pathetic.”

“No one will think you’re pathetic,” he promises. Invites her in for a quick drink before he sends her off, into the night alone. 

“It’s a Saturday night,” Tabitha points out. Halfheartedly waves at Isla, Isla never taking her headphones out when she clocks that it’s only Tabitha. “You’ve gotta do something about your work-life balance.” 

“This is the balance,” Roman shrugs. “Working from here sometimes so I can see my kid.” 

“Remind me never to have children,” she says. Checks her phone as she sips her drink. 

Frank arrives before Tabitha leaves, the old man immediately thrown off his game. 

“Nice to meet any friend of Roman’s,” Frank says to her, Roman making a vomiting motion behind his back, Tabitha trying not to laugh.

“Oops, excuse me,” he hears Tabitha say on her way out, Gerri appearing in the living room a few seconds later. 

“You didn’t tell me you were still seeing her,” Frank says, bushy eyebrows moving in a way that Roman finds truly disturbing. 

“Just friends,” he dismisses. “She’s actually on her way to seduce some bullshit artist. I forgot I was supposed to go with her.” 

“We can pick it up another time,” Gerri offers, but really they can’t, too much to go over that they can’t afford anyone to overhear. 

“She’ll survive without me.”

“And no doubt won’t hurt for company,” Frank adds, Gerri pulling a face that makes Roman chuckle. 

Isla scampers off to family room until bedtime, the three of them setting up shop in the study, already triaging shit that’s Kendall’s been busily sticking his dick into, his mood going from good to bad to fucking horrible over the course of the week. Eva says Ken even snapped at Jess yesterday, which is something none of them have seen before. 

“Tom comes in on Monday,” Gerri says. “Do we need to keep your brother away from that?” 

“Yeah,” Roman agrees. “I don’t think it’s great for Kendall to be anywhere around it. He’s already waffling about the DC lineup.” 

“He still talking about pulling Hugo?” Frank asks, and Roman nods. Moves from where he’s perched on an ottoman to flop down on the floor. “So then who?” 

“Not me,” Gerri says with absolutely no expression. “Apparently I’m too unlikable.” 

“You’re fucking welcome,” Roman drawls. Watches the flash of amusement pass over her face before she smooths it away. “I don’t know. There’s a chance he’ll do it himself.” 

“That would be a mistake,” Gerri says immediately. 

“Depends,” Roman says. Doesn’t say here that he’s not going to stop Ken from slitting his own throat, though God knows he won’t after the last month. 

“Did Karolina kill those pictures his little thespian friend was trying to sell?” Franks asks.

“Yep,” Gerri says. Doesn’t elaborate that Roman got the outlet to pocket them for a while, maybe release them later if they need the ammunition. They both trust Frank but he and Karolina will be the first to get caught in the middle if anything happens and the less they know in advance, the better for all their own sakes. 

Isla turns up at the study door here, Roman cursing when he sees the time because he should have put Isla to bed thirty minutes ago. 

“Can Gerri do bedtime?” Isla asks, and Roman feels a flutter of discomfort here. Struggles to pick out the right words to use when saying no. 

“Gerri’s very busy,” he says lamely, fingers carding through Isla’s hair. She needs a trim and he doesn’t know if Lydia already scheduled one or not, might take her himself tomorrow if he can manage it. 

“Not that busy,” Gerri says, shutting her laptop now. 

Roman’s never been good at the whole silent communication thing that Gerri and Shiv both excel at, the two of them able to give entire monologues with their eyebrows alone, but he really tries here. Doesn’t want Gerri to think this is part of her job. Doesn’t want his kid to be put to bed by someone just going through the motions either. 

Gerri smiles at him in a way that makes him relax, already offering Isla her hand as she pauses, maybe waiting for instructions. 

“At least two minutes of teeth brushing,” he tells Isla, then looks to Gerri. “We skip the virgin sacrifice on weekends.” 

“Expedient,” she responds, Isla already tugging her forward. 

He and Frank do some work on some Parks numbers that came back this week. Nothing top secret, just one more thing they didn’t get to because they were too busy handling Kendall and fighting a proxy war that’s clearly going to go on forever, the Cruises stuff sucking up every spare molecule of oxygen, a fire that keeps on growing. 

“I could do the DC thing,” Frank says now, out of nowhere. “If you need to fatten somebody up and your brother yanks Hugo.” 

“Fuck no you’re not,” Roman says. Doesn’t even look up from his computer. 

“I’ll get a golden parachute if things go south, you know. Not like I’ll be left to panhandle on the corner.” 

“No,” Roman says again, enunciating the word slowly this time, like he would for a fucking deaf person who needs to read his lips. “But feel free to write all these bad ideas in a journal somewhere. Bequeath them to the next generation whenever you croak.” 

It’s a little while before Gerri appears again, Roman worried that Isla’s holding her hostage upstairs, maybe refusing to go to sleep, but she turns back up right when he’s about to go check. Doesn’t look any worse for wear. 

“She really likes that Matilda book,” she says, reclaiming her wingback chair, and Roman pauses here. Takes in the fact that she apparently read to his kid.

“She doesn’t let me read to her much anymore,” Roman says carefully. “Usually tells me she’s big enough to read it on her own.”

“She’ll go through phases,” she assures him, and Roman wonders what she sounds like when reads out loud, whether her elocution loses any of its distinctive sharpness. But no, it probably doesn’t and it’s a silly thought to have anyway.

Frank leaves first, collecting their empty beer bottles on his way out, groaning a little when he bends down to grab the one by Roman’s foot. 

“You need to do yoga or something,” Roman advises.

“Hippy bullshit,” Frank scoffs.

“Get flexible enough, you might be able to blow yourself,” Gerri says, and Roman flops down on his back, hand over his belly as he guffaws.

“You’re both assholes,” Frank complains, but nudges Roman’s shoe with his own on the way out, Roman saluting him from the floor.

“Not my business,” Gerri hedges, and Roman sucks in a deep breath here, worried she’s about to say about his kid. “But there’s a fine line with dating after your spouse dies. Wait too long and it gets even harder.”

“Is that what you did?” he asks. Isn’t trying to even the playing field, he’s just curious. He remembers Baird being there and then Baird being gone, and after that there’s only her, alone in his memories. 

“Tabitha is very attractive,” she says in lieu of answering him, and he shifts his neck to the side so he can see her face.

“Are you really trying to play matchmaker right now?”

“Of course not,” she says.

“Good,” he huffs. “Because she and I are not a match. She doesn’t even like kids.”

She let’s it go and Roman shifts the conversation to his idiot brother-in-law and then Frank’s dumbass offer.

“He’s very loyal to you,” Gerri says. Slips off her glasses, holding them in her hand here. 

“All the more reason to keep him away from the firing squad.” He tries to keep his tone light, a little buffoonish. Feels overexposed and he can’t quite figure out why.

They strategize a little more, but eventually he’s yawning so hard that Gerri packs her stuff in, let’s him walk her out even though he’s dead on feet. 

“Try not to worry too much,” she says, and he moves to open the door for her.

“Goodnight,” he says, but then something in his brain apparently misfires, maybe calls up the muscle memory of Grace being alive, one of them always on their way out the door, because one minute he’s standing in his foyer and the next he’s kissing Gerri’s cheek. 

He feels her freeze and then he freezes, not knowing what to do, which only makes things worse because now he’s standing there with his lips still against her skin, quietly panicking because whatever skin product she uses has a slight citrus scent and there’s no way he should fucking know that. 

“Sorry,” he manages when he pulls back. Shuffles backwards, out of her bubble, Gerri staring at him now, eyes clearly tracking every fidgety movement he makes.

“Goodnight,” she says after a moment, her voice completely even. Slips out and down the stairs to her waiting car, no hurry in her movements because she’s far too practiced to ever telegraph her discomfort. 

He goes to bed without washing his face or brushing teeth. Doesn’t even change into clean shorts, just strips down to the boxers he’s already wearing and crawls into bed, praying for sleep that doesn’t come, no matter that his head feels filled with lead. 

_I just did a colossally stupid thing_ , he texts Tabitha, just for something to do besides quietly freak out. But she doesn’t answer, is probably with that artist chick right now, and he rolls over onto his stomach, buries his face in his pillow. 

. . .


	5. Chapter 5

“Is Tom in today?” Ken asks him first thing Monday morning, and Roman makes a show of being busy on his phone. 

“Um, no,” he says, sounding distracted. “I think Gerri’s pulling him in a couple days? I can’t remember.” 

“We need to waterboard him,” Ken says, fucking with his cufflinks as he talks. “Make sure he’s airtight before we let him get flogged in that kangaroo court” 

“Well he won’t be airtight in the beginning,” Roman says. “That’s the whole point of prepping him for a month. And we haven’t even been officially summoned to the principal's office yet, so.”

“Yeah,” Ken says. 

“Gerri can prep anyone,” he goes on. “She preps me all the time and roughly half my vocabulary is shit you can’t say on TV.”

“I still don’t know about Hugo.” 

“Then pull him,” Roman shrugs. Feels the crackle of fear, sharp beneath his breastbone. “If you want, I’ll go myself.” 

“Oh yeah?” Ken says, already smirking. 

“I did well on the shareholders call the day you were out.” He pauses, watching Ken fidget on his feet here. “All of Frank’s feelers reported good things about my fucking charm and way with words. So yeah. I’d play well, even better than Tom.” 

“I don’t think that’s our best option,” his brother says, already posturing. At least he’s still predictable in that way. 

“Whatever you say,” he allows, making sure to sound smug as fuck, and Kendall fucks off after that, his thin little chicken lips pressed together so tightly, they basically disappear. 

“Don’t send anything Kendall’s way this morning,” he tells Gerri later, when she pops into his office. “I just tweaked him a little and he’s bound to take it out on everyone else.” 

“Noted,” she replies. 

He’d planned to apologize when he saw her, but Tabitha talked him out of it. He did a weird, awkward thing and he hates that, but talking about it will only make him feel better at the expense of Gerri feeling more uncomfortable, and he doesn’t want that either. Will just put a little buffer between them from now on, give her some space so she doesn’t have cause to worry. 

The thing is, he didn’t really realize how often he sits next to her in meetings now. He goes to one that afternoon, the last one to walk into the conference room, and his only choices are to sit between Gerri and Karolina or else all the way at the end, next to fucking Karl. It’s his own fault he has to worry about stupid middle school shit like this, but he doesn’t want the rest of the staff to think there’s a problem, another beef between Legal and the COO, so he punks down in the seat he’d normally take. Makes himself smile when Karolina pivots her phone to where he can see it, showing him a meme someone made of Connor. 

“What a fucking embarrassment,” he shakes his head, Gerri leaning over here, obviously trying to sneak a peek, wise to their reindeer games. 

He sits back in his chair so Gerri can see, tries to avert his eyes, look straight forward. Not think about the fact that her skin smelled like the grapefruit they used to buy in the Hamptons, his grubby little fingers always sticky from the juice and the sugar they’d eat it with, his nannies tutting as he ran around, grabbing at things with his dirty hands. 

“Ridiculous,” Gerri murmurs as Karolina tucks her phone away, but Gerri’s slow to settle back in her chair, Roman brushing her arm by accident when he goes to pour himself some water. 

“Sorry,” he says instinctively. 

“My fault,” Gerri breezes in that effortless, easy tone of hers, and he wonders if this is her way of telling him it’s fine. Either that or she’s trying to punish him, death by drowning in his fucking awkwardness.

The meeting is about a restructuring of something they’re doing in Parks, but he has trouble concentrating after Frank gets through his opening spiel, keeps seeing Gerri shift beside him and he finds it distracting. He never realized how often she fiddled with her watch or touched her glasses, and every time he sees her move it catches his eye, shifts his focus. Has to drag himself back from thinking about how he can smell perfume but isn’t sure which is Karolina’s and which is Gerri’s, the two scents all muddled together as he sits there between them, the uncertainty nagging at him now, a riddle he can’t solve. 

Someone asks him a question after he hasn’t been paying attention for at least twenty minutes and he has to duck it, throw it over to Frank, and he can see the way Gerri’s forehead creases when he does it. Tries his best to ignore that, too.

“You alright?” Karolina asks him when everyone’s filing out, sounds of chairs and papers, Karl droning on about something that Frank clearly doesn’t give a shit about. 

“Tired,” Roman allows. Knows better than to deny anything is wrong, offers up this small thing instead. “I haven’t been sleeping well.” 

“All those afternoon Red Bulls,” she smiles indulgently, and he can only imagine how much that expression must piss off her wife when they argue. 

He gets pulled into three more things, all of them with Frank and Karl, then two phone calls and a thing with Kendall, Jess looking stressed the fuck out when she comes to fetch him. 

It’s after five when he gets done with Ken and he’s starving by then, only had a few bites of Isla’s cereal for breakfast and had to skip lunch. His assistant greets him with a weird expression when he finally gets back.

“Someone’s here for you,” she says as he comes through the first set of doors. 

“Very descriptive,” he drawls. “Do I have to guess? Twenty questions?” 

“A friend of yours,” she says. “Gerri said to let her in when she showed up without an appointment.” 

“Okay,” Roman says. Rolls his eyes when he walks in to find Tabitha perched on his desk. 

“I don’t need your ass cooties getting all over everything,” he says, swatting her off with a portfolio he picks up from his desk. “Sit in a chair, like a normal fucking human.” 

“Hello to you, too,” she smiles. Hands him the pink pastry box propped beside her. “You should be nice to me, I came here to gift you sugar and carbs.” 

“No,” he smirks. “You came here to snoop.” 

“Multitasking,” she says. Pops open the box to reveal croissants. 

“I’m not telling you anything else,” he says, grabbing an almond croissant right away. “You already know enough and I’m grateful for the advice, but fuck off.” 

“Just tell me who it is,” she says. “Is it the PR chick? The hot one with Russian name?”

“Polish,” he corrects, pulling a face. “And fuck no. Karolina’s married - to a woman.”

“Like that makes a difference,” she says, Roman shoveling in his croissant as he glares at her. 

“I’m not a fucking homewrecker,” he defends, mouth still full, and Tabitha pulls a disgusted face. “And I don’t want to talk about this here.” 

“It’s not your assistant, right? You’re not that stupid?” 

“Of course I’m not that stupid. I’m like, medium stupid.” 

“Medium stupid with some significant standard deviations,” Gerri chimes in, and Roman almost chokes on the second croissant he’s started wolf down. Didn’t see her come in.

He lets them make their own small talk because he certainly isn’t about to, a seed of dread sprouting in his stomach as Gerri stands next to Tabitha, smiling congenially. 

“Would you like a croissant?” Tabitha offers. “They’re fresh.” 

“Oh, no thank you,” Gerri says and then takes a beat, glancing at the box. “Wait, are they from that place on Amsterdam?’ 

“They sure are,” Tabitha says, holding them out to Gerri here, and Roman decimates another one while the two of them talk about how her youngest daughter always insisted on a cake from there for her birthday. 

“Isla might like their rainbow mille crêpes cake,” Gerri says, looking at Roman now. “They can make it in mermaid colors.” 

“Something to think about,” he says before chugging water, Tabitha’s eyes on him as he gulps from the bottle. “Her birthday will fall on a school day this year, so I can just have it delivered to her classroom. Make the sugar high her teacher’s problem.” 

“Well, I’m going to head off now,” Tabitha announces. “But nice to meet you properly, Gerri. Put a face with all the nice things Roman says about you.” He tries not to glare at her here but he knows that tone, will probably get a string of text messages from her the moment she’s out of sight. 

“Likewise,” Gerri smiles, still holding her croissant. “Thanks again.” 

“Don’t forget about our plans this time,” Tabitha calls. “A girl’s ego can only take so much.” They don’t have plans, this is just Tabitha putting on a bit of needless theater, Roman hoping she’ll trip on her heels on the way out. Instant karmic payback for being a bitch. 

“How’d it go with Wambsgans today?’ he asks immediately. Doesn’t allow for any lull that can be filled up with awkward silence or worse, stilted chatter. 

“He basically shat his pants before we finished the softball questions,” she replies. “So fine.” 

“I nudged Ken away from it today, flubbed the day. But he’ll no doubt come sniffing around again in the next month.”

“I’ll handle it,” Gerri assures him, and he nods. Hopes there isn’t anything else. “Do you want me to text you the name of that bakery?” 

“Sure,” he says. “That’d be great, thank you.” 

Grace’s mother calls him on the ride home that night, and Roman sends it voicemail because doesn’t have the energy for that now. He’s been talking with them a little, mostly through texts, an attempt to ease a year of tension that’s mostly his fault. He knows he regressed to a shittier version of himself for a while there, acting like he and Isla were the only people in the world after Grace died, and that’s cringey to remember but there’s nothing to do about it now. Just move forward, try to smooth over the hostility and suspicion he created, let Isla have a relationship with the set of grandparents who aren’t abusive or horrible, only annoyingly Californian. 

Isla’s running in literal circles when he gets home, Lydia looking exhausted when he trades out with her, goes to reheat the dinner his housekeeper left. Asks Isla to set the table. 

“Oops,” she says when she breaks a glass against the counter, and he flashes back to doing the same thing when he was a little older than her. Logan fresh from a business call that apparently went south, bellowing his head off while Roman's siblings froze, a housekeeper quietly cleaning up the pieces. 

“That’s okay,” he says, and pulls her into a hug. Holds onto her tighter when she doesn’t squirm out of it. “Accidents happen, it’s okay.” 

. . . 

The week is a blur of meetings and dancing around Ken, and then Isla goes to an overnight birthday party on Friday, Roman letting himself be dragged out for drinks by Frank. 

“If you start talking about your boring as shit baseball cards,” Roman warns him, packing up his bag. Sends a text to Tabitha here because he never responded to a fucked up joke she sent him earlier. 

“I blame your father for your lack of appreciation for sports memorabilia,” Frank says, and Roman rolls his eyes. Thinks maybe he would have cared more about sports if hadn’t always been the weakest with the smartest mouth, his father forever disappointed. 

“I’m fine with blaming him for literally everything.” 

“Drinks?” Frank asks Karolina when they see her, but she shakes her head, says something about her kid. 

“Next time,” she promises. Sounds torn. 

“Let me go ask Gerri,” Frank says. 

“No!” Roman says quickly. “Let’s just do a boys night. You know, talk macho shit. Baseball cards and chicks. Our mothers hating us.” 

“My mother was a saint.” 

“Of course you’d fucking say that.”

“Oh hey,” Frank says, ”there she is now. Gerri! Want to do drinks?” 

Roman’s sure she’ll say no, cite another engagement or just the need for some fucking sleep, the back of his palms feeling itchy when she says, “Sure, where to?”

Frank suggests Balthazar and Roman shoots that down immediately, but Bemelmans sounds fine and he vaguely recalls that they make a good martini there. 

“I’ve always liked the bar at the Carlyle,” Gerri says approvingly, and Roman really hopes that he didn’t pluck that bit of information out of his memory because that would make him a full on stalker. 

They take one car because it seems silly to take three, and he regrets not citing the need for a pit stop, taking his own service, because he ends up in the middle, Gerri’s shoulder brushing against his as the car eases into a turn. By the time they’re halfway there he feels a little trapped and a lot wound up, increasingly confused as he checks his text messages just for something to do. 

“Did you want to have her meet us there?” Franks asks him. 

“Her who?” Roman asks, not quite paying attention. He can smell Gerri’s perfume quite clearly now and it’s light and floral, nothing at all like Karolina’s, and he doesn’t know how he couldn’t remember that before. Knows he shouldn’t even be thinking about it now. 

“Tabitha,” Frank says. Nods with his chin to Roman’s phone, Tabitha’s name across the top of the text message he’s sending. 

“Rude,” Roman says, annoyed now. “And not that it’s any of your business, but she’s on a date with someone. She’s just,” he waves his phone around awkwardly, “narrating her dinner for shits and giggles.” 

“No wonder your generation is so fucked up when it comes to dating,” Frank shakes his head. 

“Like yours had it figured out? Get married early, have two children and a dog, cheat on your wives when you get bored?’ 

“I never cheated,” Frank says, head whipping around, and yeah, Roman knows that was a fucked up thing to say to a dude whose first wife died of cancer.

“Not you,” he backpedals. “But the rest of your generation. The people I grew up watching. You think people my age weren’t fucked from the start?” 

Gerri doesn’t say anything, stays unusually quiet all the way to the Carlyle, Frank peeling off to take a piss immediately, Roman and Gerri settling into the seats at the bar. 

“That was a stupid fucking thing for me to say,” he worries out loud. Orders his scotch and Frank’s old fashioned when the bartender turns up. 

“You weren’t wrong,” Gerri says while the bartender fusses with her martini. “Everyone else poked their dicks into everything. Frank was the only hold out.” 

He looks up at that, takes in the hard set of her mouth as her martini gets set down in front of her, hair falling a little in her face. 

“I’m sorry,” he says. Doesn’t even know if that’s the right to say. Maybe the kindest thing is to let the comment pass, not let on that he even registered the admission. 

Frank seems fine when he comes back, already talking about ordering an appetizer because he’s the only person Roman knows who thinks about food more than he does, no matter that Frank’s metabolism has clearly come to a screeching halt. 

“Gerri doesn’t like pork,” Roman says, regretting it the second it’s out of his mouth. Just knows Frank’s going to make some fucking joke that’ll make Gerri uncomfortable. 

“It’s not my favorite,” she allows. “But there are other things that come with it and we can order more. Let’s just start with that.”

Roman lets Gerri and Frank do most of the talking after that, glad that Frank’s in the middle, no need for anyone to lean over him as they talk shit about Karl, trade gossip about people who used to work for Waystar but that Roman doesn’t even remember. 

“Another one?” the bartender asks Roman, his scotch already empty, and he nods here. Slides the dispatched glass smoothly away from his body

“Is this a contest?” Frank needles him. “Last one standing gets bragging rights?” 

“Gerri doesn’t need anymore bragging rights,” he replies, Gerri smirking at that. “And no, I’m just thirsty and I don’t have a kid to take care of tonight.” 

“We should send you home drunk then,” Gerri says, a kind of mischief in her tone that makes something coil deep in his belly. 

“We all know I’m a horrible drunk,” he says. “No need to court that kind of shitshow.” 

“We’ll be fine so long as no one insults Gerri’s honor,” Frank says, and God, Roman really wishes he would shut the fuck up. 

Roman’s a little buzzed when the food arrives, so he tries to slow down. Get some protein in his belly because all he’s eaten we’re those fucking French breakfast pastries and he doesn’t want to make a bigger fool out of himself than he already has. 

“Order me another one,” Gerri tells Frank, slipping off to the bathroom, and Frank looms over Roman’s phone when it vibrates against the wood of the bar. 

“Ken’s calling you.” 

“Fuck that,” Roman shakes his head, lets it ring out to voicemail. 

It’s tempting to talk about work, but they’re in a crowded bar, lots of people around them, so they both let it pass, Roman pulling the charcuterie board closer because he can’t decide what the garnish is.

“Are those olives? Like, some kind of weird, masticated looking tapenade?” He pokes at it with a knife as Frank shovels down more sliced meat.

“It’s fig relish,” Gerri says, appearing beside him, and Roman tries not to jump. He never realized the way she seems to materialize out of nowhere until this week. 

“Figs aren’t that color,” he argues, just looking for something to say because she's hovering by his arm. 

“Well presumably they were dried first,” she says, one hand braced on his high back chair, his shoulder blade grazing against her knuckle as he shifts. “Try it. It’s good.” 

“Hard pass,” he says, foot tapping anxiously, Gerri still just standing there, hand on his chair like she doesn’t have a whole fucking seat of her own two feet away. 

“I gotta take a leak,” Frank says, Gerri making a snide comment about his prostate that he shrugs off. 

“Again?” Roman says to Frank’s retreating back, Gerri sliding into Frank’s chair now. Gingerly scrapes some of the fig whatever the fuck onto a cracker. 

Roman and Frank are both a smidge past tipsy, bordering on drunk by the time they pack it in, Gerri the same as she always is, minus the slight flush of her cheeks, Roman trying very hard not to stare at her now.

“I so don't want to deal with more of that bullshit tomorrow,” she says while the two of them wait on their drivers, Frank apparently the only one with the forethought to text his in advance. 

“I don’t think I’ve ever heard you whine before,” Roman marvels, his car now inching down the block. 

“Complaining is pointless. No sense in not just getting on with it.” 

“A philosophy I respect but do not myself practice.” He doesn’t move to get in his car because hers is nowhere in sight in yet, and seriously, he thinks she should fire her fucking driver. “Come on,” he says after another minute. “We can share.” 

It knows it isn’t a smart move but the other option is to be rude, leave her alone on a street on a muggy summer night, and he dismisses that out of hand. 

“Thanks for the drinks,” she says after a pause. “It was nice to unwind a bit.” 

“I’m an expert at being unwound.” He checks his phone but there’s only two texts from Kendall that are both run on sentences, which means he’s already a few bumps of coke into a long night. “Fucking great,” he sighs. “That’s just great, Kendall. You piece of shit.” 

Gerri doesn’t ask, probably already knows, and when the car pulls up the brownstone, she gets out before he does. 

“We need to start thinking about the worst case scenario if Ken isn’t functional” she says, once they’re on his steps, no driver around to hear them. 

“He’s going to volunteer himself for DC,” he says. Inputs his security code very carefully here, doesn’t want another angry call from his service. 

“What makes you think that?” 

“Because he’s an insecure fuck and I said that I'd be good at it. So he’ll stew on the idea, decide he fucking hates it. Offer to do it himself.” 

“What if he takes you up on the offer instead?’ she asks, sounding openly worried as she makes a beeline to the bar. Starts picking up bottles, obviously looking for something specific. 

“Top shelf, right corner. Behind the gin.” He takes his jacket off, pacing now. Let’s Gerri settle in a seat before he comes over, sitting in a chair a few feet away from where she is on the couch. “I’m not sure what the next play is if we have to bump him off.” 

“What do you mean,” she frowns. “You are the play.” 

“Me?” he says. “What about you?” 

“Ha,” she says, sipping her whiskey. “Wait. You’re serious?” 

“Why not?” he shrugs. “You have the experience and the institutional knowledge. You’d make a better CEO than I would.”

“I don’t have the last name,” she says, that little line in her forehead deepening as she speaks. 

“Better that way since the name is tainted. Like, if Ken goes all full on junky again, that will be second disgraced Roy in a row. You think the shareholders are going to come all over their pants for a third one?” 

“What about someone else?’ she ventures. “Someone from the outside.” 

“You mean someone who will come in, smile at everyone for like two weeks, then fire the entire executive floor the second they can? If you want to retire early that’s fine, but there are easier ways.” 

“It is starting to sound appealing,” she says, setting her drink down, and that makes something in Roman’s stomach lurch. 

“That’s not even funny,” he waves his hand. “Seriously, don’t say that.” 

“Roman, I’m kidding.” 

“Well it’s not funny,” he repeats and she smiles a little here. “But glad to see you find my utter terror fucking amusing.” 

“I’m just not accustomed to this level of loyalty,” she admits. “It’s still rather disorienting.”

They talk some more about his brother. Ways to pull him back from the brink, maybe dry him out, but even as Gerri floats ideas he knows they won’t work, will just elongate the shitty cycle, the company suffering the whole time. 

No part of him thinks there’s a rehab on the planet that can get Kendall to stay clean and sober for longer than a year. 

“I hate this,” he groans, head in his hands. “Billions of dollars at our disposal and we still turned out so fucking damaged.” 

“There’s an argument to be made that the money made that outcome more likely,” she says, the cutting tone she uses when she’s teasing him quickly evaporating into something else. “And the one sitting in front of me turned out fine. A little weird and fidgety, but fine all the same.” 

It’s a kind thing to offer him, he supposes. 

He doesn’t move to get up when she decides to take off. Things have been good, normal even, but he doesn’t want to freak her out by walking her to do the door again. 

“Well goodnight,” she says, still standing there, her expression morphing into an impatient one when he still doesn’t move. 

Apparently he’s been trained to respond to her annoyance because he gets up as if on autopilot, trailing her to the door. 

“Thanks for the chat,” he says. Knows his life could have been easier, better, if people would have just talked him like a fucking human before he had a kid of his own to fuck up.

“We’ll figure out the next play,” she says, always reassuring him, but neither of them move to open the door, Gerri staring at him now, and in the long silence he realizes that she’s waiting again. 

“Goodnight,” he says and kisses her cheek. Shorter than last time, not so fucking awkward. The kind of thing he would do at the end of lunch with Tabitha, maybe dinner with his sister. 

“Goodnight,” she says and brushes some hair out of his face. Just the brush of her hand across his forehead before he opens the door for her, her car already idling on the street. 

. . .

“So when are we going to talk about you being hot for teacher?” Tabitha asks, hovering behind him as he tries to pick out dance tights for Isla. The ones his assistant got were apparently too scratchy and he doesn’t want to live through that particular screaming fit again, will happy stand in this stupid store with all these people if that’s the cost of avoiding it.

“Never,” he says. “And stop saying shit like that.”

He buys twenty different pairs of tights because he doesn’t want to have to come back. Grumbles about the line to pay that’s barely moving, Tabitha haphazardly toying with ballet shoes that hang on display.

“She’s pretty. Has that whole ‘professor who rarely gives out A’s’ thing going for her.”

“Please stop,” he begs. “I’ll give you whatever you want.”

“You’re really not going to make a move, are you?”

“She’s not some chick at a party,” he snaps, a little harder than he means too. “I’m her boss. I see her, like, six days a week because of work. My kid asks for her. Those things individually are all no-go’s, but put them together and it makes for such an epically bad idea, not even I would fucking consider it.”

“Sorry,” Tabitha says. Looks at him with pity now.

“Don’t do that,” he says. 

“Well it’s sad! You’re both into each other but you can’t do anything about it.”

“Now you’re just being crazy,” he rolls his eyes. “This is a one-sided thing. A weird crush or whatever the fuck that’ll pass in a month.” 

He hasn’t told her about Gerri waiting for a kiss on the cheek last Friday, has filed the memory in a lockbox labeled ‘do not think about.’ At best it means nothing and at worse it means she thinks she needs to nurse his puppy dog affection to hold her spot in the company, and that last possibility makes him sick to his stomach. Hence the fucking lockbox.

“Maybe you’re just lonely,” Tabitha says, and yeah, it’s something he’s considered. She’s his only real friend anymore, the only person he texts just for fun. Maybe the last year’s been so isolating that he’s starting to go a little crazy, things getting all warped in his head. 

It’s certainly happened before.

“Probably,” he says. “But I’m not letting you fix me up, so don’t start.” 

He goes back to the office and Tabitha heads off, Eva catching him in the second he’s back. 

“Gerri needs you,” she says. “She’s been calling.”

“I left my phone in the office,” he says, already heading that way.

“I thought you were ducking me again,” Gerri says when she sees him, that dry tone she uses when nothing’s on fire and whatever she needs isn’t important.

“Forgot my phone when I ran an errand,” he says. Feels weird and uncomfortable now, doesn’t care for the joke. “What’s up?”

“Lawrence’s little pal Henry is suing us for wrongful termination. We should be fine, but if it goes to court they could drag out some rather unflattering things about Kendall and that deal.”

“What does Ken say?” 

“He left a few minutes ago,” she shrugs. “Frank says he was tweaked out of his mind in their lunch meeting.”

“Perfect,” he sighs. Closes his eyes. 

“We can take the day to decide,” Gerri says and he nods here. Isn’t sure yet what he wants to do. “We’ll be fine either way, I think.”

He ends covering all of Kendall’s calls, his own afternoon abandoned, Frank salvaging a few things but having to leave everything else, which means Roman will be fucked for the next week, having to play catch-up. 

He ends up working so late that he can’t even make it home for bedtime. 

“I’m sorry,” he tells Isla over FaceTime, “just tonight, okay?” Her face is pink, has clearly been on a crying jag, and he hates this, feels like she’s failing at everything.

He gives himself five minutes to sulk after he hangs up; puts his head down on his desk and takes deep, expansive breaths like his therapist taught him.

“Are you alright?” he hears Gerri ask, and he doesn’t lift his head immediately, just kind of nods it where it's cradled in his arms. “I know you’re missing bedtime.” 

He feels movement in his hair here, gentle fingers carding through, the kind of reassuring gesture he’d offer to his kid when she’s coming down from a tantrum. Only it isn’t reassuring, it’s making him panic, anxiety bubbling up and over in his chest because he’s thinking about how nimble her hands are , the pads of her fingers soft where they touch his neck, and he sits up with a jerky motion, Gerri’s expression unreadable when he pulls back and away.

“It’s only one night,” he tries to cover, Gerri tilting her head here. Waiting a beat before she updates him on the wrongful termination suit. 

“Do you want to go forward without Kendall’s input?” she asks, and he nods. Doesn’t trust himself to speak without his voice cracking because all he can think about is her hands now, the diamond rings she favors so slender and delicate on her fingers. 

He pulls out his phone once she’s gone, pecking out a text to Tabitha. 

_You’re right, I need to start dating._

. . .

Months of negation culminate in Grace’s parents getting a three-day visit with Isla in California, Roman leaving her in Ojai, his throat dry when he gets back on the jet alone, has to immediately head back to New York. 

If it goes well they’ll get her a weekend every month and a few weeks in the summer, maybe come out to New York sometimes, take the pressure off of Lydia, but that’s too much to think about now, so he buries himself in work. Responds to all the shit Kendall sent him because the asshole’s sober right now, apparently on a tear about everything he’s out of the loop on. 

He’s supposed to have dinner with one of Tabitha’s friends tonight, someone he’s already had coffee with, but he doesn’t really want to go. Can’t think of any good explanation he can give Tabs for bailing because Evangeline is smart and pretty, a sarcastic sense of humor that rivals his own. 

_She likes you so don’t fuck it up_ , Tabitha texts him and he doesn’t respond to that. Feels more spooked by the idea of the date going well, ending in a kiss goodnight or something more, than he is by the idea of it blowing up in his face.

“Three days will go by fast,” Karolina says when he drags back into the office in the afternoon, obviously pouting, and he makes a pathetic noise here. Doesn’t care that he’s acting like a child.

“It’s fine,” he says dramatically. Spins around in his chair a few times.

“Did you approve that ATN number?” Ken demands around dinner time, Roman about to head out to the restaurant.

“Yeah,” he says, though he thinks it was actually something he had to delegate to Frank.

“What the fuck,” his brother says. “That’s not what we agreed on.”

“I didn’t remember,” Roman says, angry now, “and we tried to call you. But your phone was off from three o’clock on, Jess couldn’t reach you, and we had to run with something.”

“You should have waited,” Kendall says, voice rising. “That was out of your lane.”

“The business of this company doesn’t actually stop every time you decide to trade in your one week chip for a bump. But sure, yeah, okay. I’m the one who’s fucking up here.”

“I am _trying_ ,” Kendall argues, halfway shouting now, and Roman can see people stopped in the hall, fear evident on several faces. “Shit with Rava opened up again and dad’s still waging his fucking shadow campaigns, and I can’t even talk to Stewy because we’re in a holy war. I don’t need you stabbing me in the ribs, too.”

“I know,” Roman placates, voice far calmer than he feels, “and I’m not. But you can’t get mad if I make decisions when you’re not here to make them. We can’t fucking function like that.”

“Yeah,” his brother says, a little calmer now. More guilty sounding. “Yeah, okay. Right. . . Shit, I’m sorry.”

“Do you want me to call Cyd? Tell her we’re changing the number?”

“No. Uh, no, that’s okay. I’m sorry I flipped out about it.” He shifts on his feet. “You’re right, I wasn’t here to make the call.”

“Am I interrupting?” Gerri asks, after she knocks. Clearly came in for the expressed purpose of breaking things up. “Roman, I have that language you asked for.”

“I’ll leave you to it,” Ken says. “Dinner later, since Isla’s gone?”

“I have plans already,” he replies. “Maybe tomorrow.” 

“You okay?” Gerri asks once Ken disappears.

“Meh,” he says. 

“Need your assistant to add something to your calendar so it doesn’t look like you ducked dinner?”

“No, I really do have something,” he says, looking around the office for the suit jacket he left lying somewhere. “Speaking of which, I need to get going.”

He considers telling her about his date, maybe provide a little reassurance that the creepy little puppy has something else to occupy his time besides following her around, but he thinks that’d be weird. They aren’t friends and he probably needs to stop blurring the line with colleagues and his personal life, knows it isn’t healthy.

“I thought I was being stood up,” Evangeline says when he walks into the restaurant, his hair matted to his forehead because it’s pouring outside. 

“I’m not that fucking rude,” he smiles. Tries to paper over his nerves with humor and charm, the kind of thing he did when he first started dating Grace.

The first half of the meal goes well, easy and painless, but she starts asking about Isla after that and he seizes up, doesn’t know what to say.

“Don’t worry,” she says, “kids _love_ me.” And something about that statement sits poorly in his stomach, his fork spinning in his hand now, a nervous fidget he can’t stop. 

“I’m so sorry,” he says, checking his phone. “I’ve gotta get back to the office. Bullshit and incompetent underlings, you know the deal.”

“Oh my God,” she says with a horrified smile, “you’re lying.”

“Noooo,” he says. “No, no, no, no.”

“And you’re not even bothering to lie well. What the fuck.”

“It’s not you,” he says, and he isn’t sure whether or not that’s a lie. She hasn’t done anything wrong, she just isn’t right, her perfume is too heavy, her comments about his kid clumsy and awkward. Her weird cocktail rings distracting him whenever she talks; the big, oddly shaped stones catching the light whenever she gestures.

“Well clearly,” she says, and he bristles a little at that. “I’m here as a favor to Tabitha and you’re literally about to walk out before the third course is even served.”

“I lied about liking fish,” he says, standing up. “And for the record, I really fucking doubt that kids love you.”

Everyone’s still in the office when he gets back, Kendall making a big production of being hard at work, and Roman sequesters himself in an empty conference room with his earphones and his laptop. Bangs out four more hours of work without anyone bothering him.

. . .

There ends up being a picture of his dinner with Evangeline on some bullshit society blog the next day, and he grits his teeth at that. Remembers her mentioning that a college friend co-owns the place they were at, a coincidence that’s too fucking tidy for his liking.

Frank gives him a little shit about the date in their morning meet up and Roman’s short tempered, makes a snide comment that he has to walk back.

“I’m sorry,” he says, hands in the air. “I didn’t mean that.”

“It’s hard,” Frank allows. “Kiddo, I know it’s hard.” And it is, but people saying that doesn’t make it any easier, doesn’t make Roman any less alone in his own head.

“Anything you’d like to tell me?” Karolina asks, and Roman flips her off, people filing into his office for a meeting about more Cruises bullshit.

“It was a good picture of you,” Eva says, as Roman avoids eye contact with everyone for as long as he can. Hears Gerri clears her throat here, apparently ready to begin, probably has something else immediately after.

“Oh, that’s cute,” he hears Tabitha’s voice out in the hallway a few minutes in, his assistant’s agitated voice overlapping with hers, “But if you think you can stop me from going in there, you’re as stupid as your blouse is ugly.”

“Uh, I’m kind of in the middle of something here,” Roman says, once Tabitha marches in. He knew she was going to be pissed, but there’s a place and a time and this isn’t it. 

“So take a five-minute break,” she replies. “Or else explain to me, in front of your assembled staff, why you walked out on one of my oldest friends in the middle of your date.”

Karolina and Eva are the first to stand up, everyone else moving to follow, Gerri the last to go, probably looking to get him out of this so they can get back to their meeting.

“The middle of dinner,” Tabitha repeats. “Like a fucking asshole.”

“I got a call,” he lies. Doesn’t want to get into this, but he also doesn’t want Tabs to be mad at him. 

“Gerri,” Tabitha pivots here, “did Roman get a call?”

“Oh, well, I’m not sure,” Gerri says, “but I think I’m just going to -“ He should have known better than to expect help from a lawyer. 

“She said a weird thing,” he tries to explain. “She said a thing about Isla and I kind of freaked out, but I honestly tried to be diplomatic about it and she was an asshole.”

“Hmm,” she says, anger maybe deflating. “She does kind of go into crazy mode when men reject her.”

“Thanks,” he says with a sharp laugh. “You couldn’t set me up with one of your normal friends?”

“I don’t have any normal friends,” she gestures pointedly at him. “And I’m done setting you up now. Like, really done, so you don’t have to worry about that.”

“Fair enough,” he replies. Kisses her cheek before she turns to leave.

“Want to talk about it?” Gerri asks, everyone else apparently having disappeared, instinctively moving away from the conflict.

“Not much to talk about,” he says, sitting down at his desk. “I was an asshole.”

“Somehow I find that hard to believe,” she frowns. Comes closer, leaning against the side of his desk as she watches him.

“Lesson learned,” he shrugs one shoulder. “No more dates for Roman. Not cut out for it.”

“I think that would be a sad waste of resources,” she hums, perching on the edge of his desk now. Nudges his leg with her heel.

“Or I could just marry you,” he says, a dangerous joke to take up. But he’s already in the hole for the week and he’s never been good about pulling himself out of a nosedive, can’t bring himself to care once he’s already crashing. “You already laugh at my shitty jokes and my kid likes you.”

“I’m going to hope your list of desired qualifications is longer than that,” she says, one side of her mouth turning up.

“You also have great bone structure and an impressive ease with swear words.”

“That last one is self-defense,” she says, and he watches her tuck her hair behind her ear. A quick motion he tracks, her eyes averted to the side now.

“Do we have time this afternoon to reconvene that fucking meeting?” he asks as she stands up.

“I’ll have the assistants pull everyone’s calendars,” she says. Flicks his ear before she moves away. “Now buck up, please. Before you tank office morale.”

He gets a text from Evangeline the next day, apologizing for the picture. He sends a polite response back, then promptly blocks her number. 

“Drinks?” Karoline asks him at the end of the day, Gerri already flanking her, bag on her arm.

“Nah,” he says. “I think I’m gonna push on for another hour, then go back to my empty house and brood.” Karolina makes a sympathetic noise here, throwing him a sad little wave before she disappears, and Gerri hangs back, probably worried about him now. “I’m fine,” he promises. “Go unwind. Get Karolina drunk so she’ll tell you what Connor said to her on the phone yesterday.” 

“I’m afraid to ask,” she says. Gives him a fleeting smile before she slowly drifts away from his door.

He works straight through until morning, showering in the office and then changing into clothes he has messengered over. 

“I can’t get a hold of Kendall,” Jess tells him a little before six, no one else in the office yet, and she looks so close to crying that all he can do is pour her a cup of coffee and sit her down in a chair. “He had a call an hour ago.”

“I’ll take care of it,” he promises.

“I’m an employee of Waystar,” she says, apropos of nothing. “So I can be transferred, right?”

Roman hangs his head here, knows this is a bad fucking omen.

“It wouldn’t be good for you to stay in the building,” he says. “But the VP in Hong Kong needs someone and from there you can hop anywhere.”

He watches as Jess nods, a shaky hand on her forehead. Stares off into space and then eventually sips her coffee.

He intercepts Gerri downstairs an hour later, doesn’t let her get past the lobby before he’s turning her around, guiding her out of the building with a hand to the small of her back.

They’ve walked three blocks before he says anything, finds a sidewalk with construction noise, jackhammers drilling through concrete, the scrape of scaffolding going up.

“Do we have someone on the Senate committee who can send my brother a personalized invitation?” he asks. Watches Gerri's face go expressionless.

“It would take a few favors,” she says. “But I’ve already had a few soft conversations on the matter. Purely hypothetical.” He was hoping she’d say that.

“Make them non-hypothetical,” he tells her, both of them wincing when a nearby crane drops something, the clatter of metal against metal. 

“I’ll step out of the office at lunch. Make a few calls.”

“There’s no going back for you after that,” he warns her. “You can lie your ass off about everything else, but there’s no way to squirm out of this if he finds out.”

“Are you really giving me an out right now?” she demands as they walk back. “You get to propose marriage, but you think I’m going to get squirrelly about putting a drug addict out of his misery?”

“I’d be an asshole not to offer you an out.”

“You’re an asshole for thinking I’d want one,” she says, and he smirks at this because what she’s doing now looks awfully close to pouting.

“You’re very pretty when you’re angry,” he says.

“Fuck off.”

“I think your eyes might get bluer when you swear at me.” Her mouth loses the hard set it had a moment ago, her expression a little softer now, and he smirks as he follows her into the elevator. Thinks maybe he’ll just lean into this crush thing from now on, go around tormenting her with his endless attention as she bats him away.

He can think of worse ways to spend his days. 

“You’re a child,” she says, pushing the button for their floor as he watches the movement of her hand, her thin gold bracelet catching the shitty fluorescent light for a moment.

“You also have excellent taste in jewelry.”

“Enough,” she orders. But her cheeks are decidedly pink now and he chuckles, feels less shitty about the miserable day ahead.

. . .

Isla comes back that same day that Ken finds out about Jess’s transfer and goes ballistic, Roman getting back from the airport only to get shouted at for the better part of an hour. And then Shiv calls. 

“The Senate committee wants Kendall,” she says on speaker phone. “Nothing’s been decided yet, but someone clearly pushed the idea of summoning the CEO specifically and it looks like it’s going to stick.” 

“You mean someone like Gil fucking Eavis?” Roman demands, makes a big production of walking around, grabbing shit off Ken’s desk, only to put it back down someplace else. 

“No,” Shiv says, already defensive, and Ken rolls his eyes. Clearly doesn’t believe her. 

“Gerri,” Ken says, muting the call, “how many friends do we have on that committee?” 

“Not enough,” she grimaces. “But I might be able to shake the tree, find out who planted your name. That definitely wasn’t on the table the last time I checked.” 

“Do that,” Ken orders, then unmutes Shiv. “Well thanks for the call. Let me know if you hear anything else, okay?” 

“You want to pull Hugo?” Roman asks, once the call hangs up. “Put me in? Go for a full spreading of our corporate ass cheeks, so they can’t say we’re hiding anything?"

“No,” Kendall shakes his head. “No way.” 

“I’d be fucking good,” he argues, Gerri making a show of rolling her eyes here. “Hey, I killed in Japan. Even Gerri thought so.” 

“You had four lawyers holding your hand the whole time,” Gerri frowns, “and at no point were you under oath, with catastrophic legal consequences hanging in the balance if you decided to bullshit something. But sure. Very entertaining.” 

She holds his gaze a little here, gives a slight, meaningful shake of her head, and he sits down at Ken's coffee table, legs crossed under himself while he makes whining noises about Gerri basically being a bitch. 

“I don’t recall you holding my hand in Japan,” he teases Gerri in her office later, Karolina with them, texting away on her phone. “How did I miss that?” 

“You were probably confused by physical contact you didn’t have to pay for,” she replies, Karolina ignoring them both. 

“I believe I bought you dinner,” he says. “Wasn’t that enough?” 

“Sorry,” she smirks. “My price is a little higher.” 

“You’re both ridiculous,” Karolina says, eyes never leaving her phone. 

Frank and Gerri come over for dinner. Roman reheats the roast Lucia left, Frank handing out the burner cell phones that Gerri apparently had him get, no more using the Waystar ones for their shadow dealings. 

“Are we drug dealers now?” Roman asks, Isla in the bathroom, allegedly washing her hands. 

“Maybe your brother would return our calls more consistently if we were,” Frank says. “Want me to go outside, see what I can score?”

“In this neighborhood, nothing but Cialis,” Gerri says, Roman turning to feel Isla’s hands when she comes back. 

“Nice try,” he says. “But go fish.”

“I washed them!” she argues. 

“Two strikes for lying,” Roman says. “Don't make it a third. Go on, wash up. We’re all waiting on you.” 

“Growing weaker from hunger by the minute,” Frank says, Isla making a face at him as she stomps back to the bathroom. 

They don’t talk much about work over dinner, Isla filling the meal with rapid-fire words about her grandparents’ horses and the flight back from California, a flight attendant apparently giving her some sparkling apple cider in a champagne flute. 

“And the glass was shaped like this,” Isla demonstrates, Roman reaching over to top off Gerri’s wine glass. 

“Sometimes the glasses are round and kind of squat,” Frank says. Carries the adult end of conversation as Roman inhales his food, tries to clear his head of the day. 

“I’m going to have to thoroughly prep him,” Gerri says about Kendall, once Isla’s gone, playing in the family room. “He’ll know if I try to set him up.” 

“He’ll set himself up,” Roman shrugs. Listens to Frank and Gerri debate strategies for the better part of an hour as he nurses a beer, doesn’t offer up many words of his own. 

“You should take some time,” Frank says gently. “Think about this before we make any decisions.” 

“Yeah,” Roman says. Slumps down into the couch, feeling bone tired. 

Gerri tilts her head at Frank, a signal for them to head out, let Roman be alone, but she doesn’t move when Frank does. 

“It would be natural to have second thoughts here,” Gerri says. She doesn’t sound nervous, but he knows she must be. 

“Nah,” he shakes his head. “I mean it all fucking sucks, but there’s no other way and I know that.” 

“You know that thing I said about Japan -” 

“We’re good,” he interrupts, waving her off. “We’re good, I promise.” She nods, the two of them rising now, the sound of her heels following him to the door. 

He stands back from her when they get there, doesn’t move to kiss her cheek because at the moment he feels acutely aware of the fact that he’s responsible for not crashing the company that pays her.

She moves toward him with confidence, the motion smooth and fluid as goes to kiss his cheek. Like she’s done it a hundred times, old friends at some stuffy gala, saying goodnight before they slip off into a crowd. 

“Goodnight,” she says when she pulls back, and he grabs her by the wrist, holding her in place. 

There’s a long moment where they’re just staring at each other, but then he moves, returning the gesture like they’re fucking French, lips ghosting over the lower corner of her cheek, an inch from her mouth.

“Goodnight,” she says as he opens the door.

“You already said that,” he says, watches the chagrin pass over her face before she covers it with a polite smile. 

He smiles when he closes the door. Looks forward to teasing her about how soft her lips are, thinks maybe he’ll do it the next time they're alone in an elevator, nowhere for her to hide.

. . .


	6. Chapter 6

The pictures taken by Kendall’s junkie actress friend leak out, Karolina running around, frantically putting out fires, Roman feeling awful as he watches it play out because he’s the one who nudged the outlet to run them. 

_I fucking hate this_ , he texts Frank. He isn’t so much looking for a reply as he is sending words out into the ether by way of tapping them out on his shitty burner phone, but Frank still turns up at his door an hour later, offers to take him to lunch. 

“I can’t,” Roman says miserably, a packed afternoon ahead of him. But Frank doesn’t budge, so he relents, has his assistant reschedule a call to Films that can probably wait. 

“It’s shitty,” Frank says over deli sandwiches. “I won’t tell you it isn’t shitty.” 

“Karolina will have to stay all night,” Roman worries as he crinkles up the butch paper his sandwich came in. “Won’t even be able to see her kid before he goes to bed.” 

“You’re doing her a favor by not bringing her in on it,” Frank replies. “Trust me. If she could choose, she’d choose not to know. It’s safer for her.” 

“You wish I hadn’t brought you in?” he asks now. “Kept it to only Gerri knowing about offing my brother?”

“I give it ten to one odds Gerri’s the one who suggested getting rid of Kendall in the first place,” Franks says, and Roman doesn’t let himself react, won’t offer up any kind of confirmation. “You’re a lot of things, but you aren’t a killer.” 

Roman doesn’t know what to say to that, thinks the absolution is probably misplaced given what they’re in the middle of doing. Has a call scheduled with Rava’s lawyer later, might consider an alliance of sorts there. 

“I hate this city in August,” Roman grouses as they climb back in the car, grumpy about the sticky heat he was barely even in.

“My dad used to buy our bagels at a place down the block,” Frank says, pointing through the window. “Now look at it. Fucking Whole Foods.” 

Roman feels a little more like a human when he comes back, probably needed an injection of carbs and saturated fat to compensate for the stress, but by the end of the day Kendall’s running a witch hunt, trying to figure out if they have a leak, and when Gerri passes him in the hall, her face looks grim. 

_Would a dick pic from Karl make your day better?_ he texts her. No sense in having an untraceable phone if he can’t make an inappropriate joke to a colleague. 

_You’d need a microscope, not a camera,_ she texts back a few minutes later, Roman smiling now as he listens to someone from Parks drone on and on about a proposed remodel in Florida, the entire call tedious. 

He doesn’t bother Gerri the rest of the day, knows that Kendall is making her life hell already. Fights the urge to poke his head out, try to mitigate some of the damage his brother is doing, knows he needs to let Ken burn the last of his bridges, have everyone hate him rather than seeing him as a pathetic sack of bad habits. 

_He fired four people including Eva_ , Gerri texts him when he’s getting ready to leave, and he freezes, reading the words again. 

_He what?_ But even as he sends it, he’s fast walking to Gerri’s office, bumping into people as he half jogs down the hallway.

“Not now,” Gerri tells him when he walks in, someone from HR already there, a few panicked stricken people talking through wrongful termination possibilities. But he doesn’t know what to do, can’t just let this happen, so he heads to Ken’s office instead, intercepted by Karolina before he walks in. 

“No,” she says firmly, cutting him off before he can even fucking speak, already tugging him away by his arm. Basically drags him back to his own office, depositing him in the room and then closing the door behind them. “If you go in there now, he’ll only get more unhinged.” 

“Well he can’t just fucking fire Eva!” 

“Gerri already got him to walk it back,” she placates, hands held up in front of her. “Please trust me on this. Ken’s more predictable than Logan was, I promise we’ll get him calmed and everything will be fine.” 

“I’m so sorry,” he says. Sounds as gutted as he feels. 

“You don’t have anything to be sorry about. Roman, you aren’t the problem.” 

He leaves for the day because there’s nothing else for him to do, swings by the Isla’s swim practice to pick her up, his nose wrinkling at the smell of chlorine. 

“Did you have fun?” he asks, and Isla shrugs inside her towel. 

“It’s not dance,” she frowns, watering pooling by her feet.

“It’s okay to like more than one thing,” he says. Kisses her wet head. “You hungry? Want to go out for junk food?” 

Isla takes forever to change, he has to ask someone to go check on her in the locker room , but eventually she comes out with her bag dragging on the floor, wet hair down around her shoulders. 

They go out for burgers and milkshakes because she says she’s starving, and he smiles as she wolfs down her dinner, then looks longingly over at his. 

“It has pickles on it,” he warns, already cutting off a part of his burger.

“I’ll it pick off.” She promptly disassembles the meat and bread, veggies pushed aside as she shoves the rest in her mouth. 

“Drink some water,” he says gently as he pulls her milkshake away. Waits until she’s gotten a third of the glass down before he lets her have it back. 

She falls asleep in the car, dead weight as he carries her into the house, and he plunks her down in her bed, no matter that it’s too early and she’ll pop up awake at five in the morning. Stomp into his bedroom with fully formed thoughts about some shit her swim instructor said, what he should make her for breakfast. 

He’s in his own bed, doom scrolling on his phone, when the other cell phone rings. 

“If you’re calling for that picture of Karl’s dick, I’m sorry but I struck out.” 

“However will I make it through the day,” Gerri says, tone dry as a bottle of vermouth. “Eva’s back. No need to worry about that particular hiccup.” 

“Karolina told me,” he admits. “Right after she dragged me away from Ken’s office like I was a fucking child.” 

“She was right,” she replies. “That would have made it worse.” He doesn’t know what to say that, fucking hates feeling this powerless, like he’s teenager again, his dad yelling at Kendall for something that Shiv did. “Frank said something about you picking Isla up. Did her dance schedule change?” 

“No,” he sighs. Feels tired but knows that he’ll never sleep. “She started swim today.” 

“One of the girls did swim,” she says, clucking her tongue in a way that he finds fascinating. “Her room wreaked of chlorine half the year.” 

“Ugh,” he pulls a face. “Maybe Isla won’t stick with it and I’ll escape that fate.” 

“Don’t count on it,” she says, sounding amused now. “She’s tall and long-limbed. Agile when she’s not spinning around like a whirling dervish on speed. She’ll probably take to it.” 

“Just my luck,” he laments, and he can hear the sound of a sink and then something opening and closing, maybe her putzing around her kitchen. Not that he’s ever known her putz. “What are you doing?’ 

“Trying to find where the cleaning service put my cordial glasses.” Another thud and then the sound of something being moved around, a series of soft clinks. “I wish they’d just put them back where they’ve always been kept, but what do I know. I just fucking live here.” 

He doesn’t know why this aside is so funny, but the image of her, probably barefoot, rooting around in a cabinet, mad at a cleaning lady over some waspy piece of crystal sends him off into a giggle fit, Gerri making displeased noises as he laughs at her. 

“Sorry,” he says, still laughing. 

“You aren’t.” 

“Clearly this glimpse into the domestic life of Geraldine Kellman is too much for me to bear.” 

“Never use that name again.”

“It’s your legal name,” he says, sitting up in bed here. “I should know, I have to approve the documents with your signature across them.” 

“It’s a name I hate and hence never use,” she replies, a curtness to her tone now. 

“Not like I can throw any stones about given names,” he says, trying to walk back his stupid joke.“Only father dearest calls me Romulus.” 

“Have you spoken to him at all?” she asks, and the question surprises him, a sharp pain in his stomach. Remembers Isla standing behind him, crying and scared; Logan’s face as unyielding as always. 

“Fuck no,” he says with such bile, there’s a long beat before she says anything, probably picking her words carefully in the silence. 

“All the better,” she says, and he looks at the time here, realizes he should sign off, get some sleep. Tells her as much. “Hang tight. This will all even out.” 

He’s about to say goodnight but then he stops, smiling to himself because she’s at home and they’ve been talking for several minutes about almost nothing at all, and she could have just told him the Eva thing in a text. 

“You have a lovely phone voice,” he says, and he can hear the silence stretch on the other end. “Not everyone does. Goodnight.” 

He hangs up before she can say anything, which is pretty fucking juvenile, but it feels like a win and he falls asleep thinking about Gerri in some custom silk robe, angrily rummaging around in a cabinet. 

. . . 

Kendall gets a new sponsor, and Roman knows that from here on out, everything is going to get even more fucked.

“Oh boy,” Frank says when he finds out. “Here we go.”

Ken changes sponsors whenever he can’t keep it together for longer than a week, looks for more ways to blame his shit other people, as if the sixty-year-old finance guy answering Ken’s phone calls at 2am is the missing piece to his fucking sobriety jigsaw.

It could be good timing, depending on how Roman looks at it. The annual sad sack wasp trap is next week - he forgot about it until he looked at his calendar - and it might not be the worst week for his brother to implode.

 _Buckle your seatbelt and pull down your pants_ , Gerri texts him, Roman snickering as he skims the first message. _He’s bumping Shiv’s speech at the gala._

_He’s giving it himself?_

_I guess,_ she replies. Doesn’t send anything back to his next three texts, which are mostly vulgarities anyway. 

“Heard you got bumped,” he tells Shiv. Waits until late afternoon to call her. 

“What is he doing?” she demands, sounds like she’s in an office somewhere, probably in DC. Figuring out how to make a corpse an attractive candidate for president, or whatever it is she does day in, day out. “There’s a reason we decided I’d be the face of it this year. We’ve already been pushing the feminist PR lines up everyone’s snatch that’ll look at us.”

“I honestly don’t know,” he says. “He hasn’t even told me yet. I found out from the suits.”

“Is he sober?”

“This week? Sure.”

“I _knew_ that he would do this,” she seethes. “Too weak to handle the pressure without folding in on himself.”

“That Senate thing isn’t you and your guy, right?” he asks. Knows to twist the knife a little. “That isn’t some sad little attempt at you starting another palace coup?”

“Fuck you.”

“Fuck you,” he parrots back. “I have to ask.”

“I’m hearing it came from Harrison,” she says now, the sound of people chatting in the background. “But that doesn’t make any sense. Someone must be lying.”

“So. . . basically you have nothing and you’re out in the cold,” he smirks. Takes a good measure of joy in this part. “Fucking perfect. Glad to have you on our side.”

“Ken said you’re the one who pushed for Tom to get prepped for hearings,” she says before they hang up. 

“Siobhan,” he sighs dramatically. “I’m on record as thinking your husband is a couple of scarecrows held together by highly questionable ties. Why in the fuck would I push for him to represent Waystar in this very delicate legal matter?”

“He said you didn’t want Gerri.”

“I don’t want fucking Gerri,” he says, his neck getting hot here. “I wanted it to be me. I’m the one with porn star appeal.”

“Jesus Christ.”

“Well why does no one think I can do it?” he asks, voice getting high pitched. Turns up that part of his brain that says no one ever takes him seriously, not when it matters. Let’s it do all the talking as he lies his ass off to his sister.

“Because you’re a moron.” Adds a moment later, “And let me steal my niece soon.”

“Whatever,” he says and hangs up. 

_Just gave my sister’s nip a good tweak_ , he warns Gerri.

 _A horrifying sentence even for you,_ she texts him a while later, and he sends her back a thumbs up.

. . .

He takes Tabitha to the benefit because he needs a date. He knows better than to go alone like he did last year and this way he’ll have someone to mock people with.

“You look nice,” he says when he picks her up. 

“We really have to work on your game,” she complains. “It’s pathetic.”

“I’m sure a dozen guys will instantaneously jizz their pants when you walk in.” He smiles his most asshole-ish smile. “That better?”

“Better than _nice_ ,” she says. Tosses back her champagne with a haughty look and he chuckles, watches traffic through the car window.

It’s maybe ten minutes before Tabs splits from his side to chat up some chick she slept with once, and then Roman’s alone, bobbing through the crowd, trying to be charming even though most of these people have no choice but to kiss his ass.

He doesn’t mean to circle around until he finds Gerri, but it’s what he does, runs into her with a pack of geezers he vaguely recognizes.

“Well none of my wives were you,” one of the men says to Gerri, and that’s just fucking gross, so Roman saddles up with his best eat-shit smile and a fresh glass of champagne.

They end up being shareholders because of course they are, and Roman makes a few jokes, Gerri steering the conversation to safer waters, subjects he can speak to fluidly. 

“Gross,” he says, after he and Gerri walk away.

“They’re the harmless sort,” she says, clearly handling him. 

“They didn’t even have any good lines,” he grumbles, everyone moving to take their seats now, and Gerri taps him on the back, clearly wants him to get moving.

Shiv no-shows, which Kendall should have seen coming but clearly didn’t. Roman watches him offer shitty, stilted explanations when people ask after her, Wambsgans sitting alone with that creepy smile that looks stitched to his face. Some demented, limited edition beanie baby or whatever the fuck people in flat states buy.

Tabitha finds him again at their seats, the two of them snickering through most of dinner, Roman quiet through his brother’s speech, Ken reading from some note cards and visibly sweating, everyone’s smiles looking tighter and tighter as he drones on. 

“I can’t believe you’re the charming one,” Tabitha whispers as they clap, Roman shrugging because he can’t tell how poorly it played away from their table.

Tabs convinces him to dance after a good dousing of champagne, the two of them laughing at how spastic he is during anything that isn’t a waltz. 

“Go ask Gerri to dance,” she says in his ear.

“Fuck you,” he sputters. Spins her a little faster than necessary after that.

“She didn’t bring a date,” she says. “It’s the chivalrous thing to do.” But he doesn’t argue anymore, just leads them safely away from the dance floor. 

“Gerri needs you,” his assistant says a few minutes later, and he spots her with the same old cum dumps as before.

“Mind if I borrow my lawyer for a dance?” he asks them. Doesn’t turn to Gerri until they’re a good distance away, standing on the dance floor, his hand on her elbow as they weave through the crowd.

“I needed you to charm them,” she says. “Build up some good will.” She looks pissed and she’s using that aloof, displeased tone that’s never directed at him anymore and it makes him feel itchy all over, his shirt too tight around his neck.

“I thought you needed an out,” he explains awkwardly, the two of them standing still on the dance floor, people swaying around them. “Let’s just go back.”

“It’s fine,” she says, but it clearly isn’t and her mouth’s pressed into a thin line now, so Roman backs away, bumping into someone as he moves, a half-assed apology tossed over his shoulder.

He finds the gaggle of shareholders again, the dinosaurs quick to admit him into their boring little semi-circle.

“She shoot you down?” one of them asks, but Roman doesn’t feel like hearing all their war stories about Gerri and all the times she’s politely moved their wandering crypt keeper hands.

“I’m a horrible dancer,” he says with a self-deprecating smile. “She knew better than to trust her feet anywhere around me.”

They talk a lot of shop, Roman blustering with inventive swears when the topic of the Senate hearings comes up.

“Nothing a good rim job can’t fix,” someone says.

“Then my brother’s just the man for the project.”

“Time to go?” Tabitha asks him hopefully when he finds her with Gerri, the two of them chatting about some Broadway show Roman’s never heard of and will absolutely not be seeing.

“Need me for anything else?” he asks Gerri, and she shakes her head. Gives him a look he can’t interpret.

He says goodbye to Tom on the way out, tries to be nice, allay any suspicions.

“Can we have a bro lunch?” Tom asks him. “Like a dude on dude thing?”

“How homoerotic,” Tabitha says, Tom getting a good gander at her now, and Roman swears he looks primed to shit his pants. Watches his brother-in-law choke on his drink.

“Careful how you swallow,” Tabitha says sweetly, and Roman turns on his heel so he doesn’t laugh in his pasty face.

“Sure, bro,” Roman manages. “Hit me up next week.” Breaks down into giggles after that, Tabitha’s arm in his.

“I saw you strand Gerri on the dance floor,” she says in the car. “Why ask her to dance only to turn tail and run?”

“That’s not what happened,” he defends, undoing his tie. “And I don’t want to talk about this shit. Like, fucking really.”

She’s quiet when she goes to get out of the car and he stops her, pecking her cheek. 

“I’ll stop pushing,” she promises, but he knows this gives him a week’s reprieve at best. They share some bad habits that way.

It’s the new part-time nanny rather than Lydia tonight, and he dismisses her with a perfunctory smile and some bullshit words, Isla in bed hours ago. 

_The color of your dress made your skin look like milk_ , he texts Gerri. Because he’s tired and confused and apparently doesn’t think his life is difficult enough.

. . . 

Karolina traces the leaked photos back to him because he’s a moron who apparently can’t cover his tracks and she’s very good at her job.

“No one else knows,” she says to him in his office. “But you’re going to have to explain this to me.”

“Do you actually want to know?” He doesn’t mean it in a shitty way. He likes her, trusts her too, but she’s going to keep getting squeezed on both sides from now on and he doesn’t know what to do about that. 

“It’s probably better if I don’t,” she breathes out eventually, after they’ve been staring at each other over his desk. “But be more careful, okay? Don’t leave any fingerprints from now on.”

Frank’s grimaces when he finds out about that conversation and Gerri seems unbothered, Roman riding down in the elevator with her, on the way to a meeting across town.

They’re alone and he remembers now that he meant to tease her the next time he had her trapped in an elevator, but she hasn’t been haunting his office much since the benefit two days ago, that fucking text he sent that night, and this time he knows better than to dig the hole even deeper.

Traffic is horrible, they’re going to be late, and he really hates being late to things now. Finally figured out that most people instinctively dislike swaggering assholes who turn up late, burning through time that isn’t theirs.

“We called them,” Gerri says as she texts someone. Probably her assistant, maybe his. “It’s fine.”

He doesn’t say anything, just puts his head against the window, and he feels her pat his leg, his face turning to track the movement as she pulls her hand back into her lap.

“I don’t even dance well,” he says, and he sees the corner of her mouth turn up.

“That much I noticed.”

“Would have tried though.”

“I have no doubt,” she says, typing away again. 

The meeting is long and brutal, someone that Ken didn’t have the balls to meet with himself because he can’t stomach this kind of rejection, Roman fighting for a yes they were never, ever going to get.

“Stop at that coffee place,” he tells the driver on the way back. He needs to pace or something, will go in and get his own coffee if it buys him a few minutes of movement. “You can stay,” he says to Gerri, but she’s already unbuckling her seatbelt and watching him with wary eyes, like he’s a dog about to slip his leash.

“You can’t take things so personally,” she chides, following him into the coffee shop. He thinks she’s only talking about the meeting but he can’t be sure, not with that little exchange on the way over that was neither here nor there.

“Waystar is personal,” he says. “Everything about it is personal now.”

He pays for their coffees and she takes them from the barista, handing him his triple shot iced coffee with warm fingers that brush against his.

“Your coffee order is going to stop your heart one day,” she says, only he isn’t amused. He’s keeping secrets from Karolina, Ken’s going around firing people, and there’s bound to be more collateral damage in the wake of what they're doing, and that’s a rancid thing for him to swallow.

“Doesn’t matter,” he says, but he can’t look at her now. Her lipstick is smudged a little in the corner from her coffee and it’s impossible not to stare at her mouth if he doesn’t shift his body away, look at people passing them on the street. “None of it fucking matters.”

“Jesus Christ,” she hisses. “Is this still about the fucking benefit?” And this only makes him angrier because it’s not about the benefit and it’s not _not_ about the benefit, and he doesn’t know what to say, twisting on his feet on a crowded sidewalk. “Roman, kiddo, I’m very fond of you -“

“Kiddo,” he interrupts, a dry laugh bubbling out of his chest. Sounds so brittle it might fucking shatter. “Okay, well, I’m going to walk back, but maybe fix your lipstick in the car because your drink fucked it up.”

“Roman.” She sounds less sharp now, like her anger deflated or something, but he doesn’t want to hear it and he’s not sure what he’s been doing, flirting with her so openly when she’s been watching him fuck up for the better part of his life. 

“See you back at the office,” he says with some weird, stilted wave, already walking away from her, creating distance.

He’s not even sure he knows how to get back to the office from here.

“Rome,” she calls again, but he doesn’t turn around, doesn’t want to find out if she’s wiped away the stray pink pigment yet. 

. . .

Gerri avoids him the rest of the day in the office, but then he’s home, making dinner with Isla, and his little Bat Phone lights up with a call from her.

“Will you try to eat some salad this time?” he asks Isla, ignoring the call, and she makes an aggrieved sound. “I’m not asking you to eat the broccoli. See, there aren’t even tomatoes in the salad.”

He thought he would get less picky as she got older, the way he did, but instead she seems to collect more foods to hate. Too squishy, too bitter, too slimy; the list feels endless now and Roman pushes more than he should during dinner, Isla angry crying and refusing to eat anything at all. 

“Rabbit, honey, please just eat the chicken and leave the rest.” But she won’t and bedtime is quiet and unpleasant, Isla huffing onto her stomach before he can kiss her goodnight, her face shoved against Mr. Bugs.

He’s in the living room, drinking his second scotch and reading through work emails when Gerri turns up at his door.

“This isn’t a good time,” he says, but lets her in anyway. 

“I said the kiddo thing be a bitch,” she says right off. “But I regretted it as soon as it was out of my mouth.”

“It’s fine,” he says, and she takes a hard look at him. Steals the glass out of his hand, polishing his drink off. “Did you come all the way over here to apologize?”

“You wouldn’t answer my calls.”

“I only heard the one,” he says, scratching his chin. “The rest of the time I was going nine rounds with my kid.”

“So a great day all around.” She leans against a table here, looking at him like she’s sizing him up, and he doesn’t know how to break the silence. “Roman, you scare me.”

“I’m sorry,” he says automatically. “If it’s the compliments and stuff- Gerri, I’ll stop. I can stop.”

“Oh, no, those don’t scare me,” she says, tilting her head. “Though I would like it noted I haven’t been given any in nearly forty-eight hours now.”

“Is that a complaint?” he asks, a little laugh pulled from despite his throbbing head and the kid upstairs who wouldn’t let him cuddle her.

“I get the feeling that if I’d asked you to burn your bridges with those shareholders, you would have,” she ventures.

“It’s not a bad thing to be loyal to you and Frank. Karolina.”

“But it’s not the same, is it?” she asks. Turns to set the empty glass down on the table, the long skirt she’s wearing swaying with the movement. “Unless you kiss Frank goodbye when I’m not looking.”

“I kiss Tabitha goodbye all the time,” he defends, though he doesn’t know why. He hasn’t been trying to hide his attraction, people in the office thinking it’s only a silly little joke. But Gerri’s always been smarter than everyone else.

Always, without fail.

“Do you?” she asks, and there’s something about her tone here, something dark and thorny and not at all cold, and the words hit him like the crack of a whip. “And is it the same?”

All he can do is shake his head. Feels himself moving toward her, like the way she’s staring at him is compelling his legs to close the distance. 

He comes close enough to stand right in front of her, invade her space, and he’s never been brave, always a coward, but she keeps touching him and calling him, seeking him out when there’s no reason, no real reason at all, and he thought for a while he was going crazy, but no. No, he doesn’t think he is.

“You changed your lipstick,” he says. Gently tilts her head up, two fingers slipped under her chin, and she stares at him as if it’s a challenge. Like the first time she came here, the two of them so wary of one another. Fucking Lady Macbeth.

“Couldn’t find the other one,” she replies, and he runs his other hand through the hair by her ear. No glasses to get in the way of his fingers, and he wonders if she deliberately took them off before she came to him. “Think it dropped out of my purse on the sidewalk.”

“A pity,” he replies, fingers still running through the silk of her hair, and her eyes slip shut, long eyelashes fluttering closed. “You okay with me touching you like this?”

“Yes,” she says and it’s mostly breath, a soft sound he would have found wholly incongruent to the woman he got on a plane to Japan with. “But you have to know this is a horrible idea.”

“Catastrophic,” he agrees, mouth dry, his index finger running over her brow, that little line that drives him crazy smoothing out as he traces it. “But we’re going to be very responsible. Nothing improper allowed to happen because we’re both too prudent for any of that.”

“This doesn’t feel particularly prudent,” she says. But her criticism lacks the same effect when he can hear her breath stutter, her mouth slightly parted as he keeps on gently touching her face, slowly running fingers through her hair.

“Just a little friendly affection,” he promises. “Me touching your skin because it’s a fucking crime not to and sometimes all I think about is how soft your cheek is.”

“Roman. . . “

“Tell me to stop,” he says, but it’s almost a taunt, Gerri leaning into his touch now, her face half cradled in his hand. 

“Greedy,” she manages and he puffs out a laugh. 

“You aren’t on my couch, flat on your back. I’d call this pretty non-greedy of me.”

“Fuck you,” she gasps, her cheeks flushing as he watches in fascination, the color blooming out.

“Nope,” he drawls. “Shan’t”. He follows the curve of her cheekbone with the back of his hand, watches the way the color continues to darken as he touches the delicate skin there. “So pretty. . . Christ, Gerri, you’re so pretty it’s unreal.”

“Be more specific.”

“Skin like a goddamn porcelain doll. And your hands. They’re elegant. Like you should be playing a piano.”

“I took violin as a girl,” she admits, eyes opening now, staring at him like she’s deciding something. Probably how much longer she’ll let this go on. “This is only going to make it unbearable. Make us both miserable.”

“Do you feel miserable right now?” he asks innocently, his thumb gently pressing into her lips, and he feels the air she sucks in then, warm breath rushing past his fingers when she exhales. 

He thinks if he moved his thumb, replaced it with his mouth, she wouldn’t stop him, and the idea of that seems to defy his comprehension. Like all those world literature classes he took and never read the books, just spouted off random shit to cover his fear that he maybe was too dense, too stupid to understand the themes even if he’d read them. Doris Lessing and all those bitchy women’s studies majors talking about marriage as a prison.

“I should go,” she says, but she doesn’t move. Closes her eyes again, his thumb having slipped down to her chin. 

“Probably,” he agrees. 

He moves his other hand to her ear, fiddling with the small pearl earring there, and she tilts her head again when his fingers switch to her earlobe, his thumbnail scraping gently at the pale flesh of it before he drops his hand, takes a step back.

He doesn’t move to kiss her goodbye when she leaves, doesn’t trust that he has any restraint left, and she stares at him once they’re at the door. Has apparently regained her composure, eyes flinty with some kind of challenge.

“You kiss Tabitha goodbye all the time,” she parrots back mockingly, and he shakes his head with a smirk. 

She’s better at everything, she always wins, and apparently she’s not making an exception for this game of chicken he started. 

“Goodnight,” he says, and puts his hand on her hip when he kisses both of her cheeks and then her forehead. Doesn’t try for her mouth, not even a chaste peck, and she smirks at that. Looks smug.

“Coward,” she says, and he laughs. Actually laughs, even though he’s about to take a shower and masturbate until he’s fucking chafed. “Goodnight.”

The last word is soft, sweet even, and he keeps the door open the entire time she walks to the car, doesn’t hide the way he watches her hips move as she navigates the stairs. 

. . . 

“I’m changing the Senate lineup,” Ken announces at the morning meeting, doesn’t give Roman a head’s up in private first. “Hugo’s out, Gerri you’re in.” 

Roman’s careful not to react, can feel the way Gerri’s paying attention to him, no matter that her focus is on the paper in front of her, jotting notes like, ‘CEO is an asshole’. 

Well, probably not, but she fucking should. 

“You don’t mind if I borrow your security blanket, do you?” Kendall asks Roman, all eyes on them, and it’s a lame joke but it fucking worries him. Doesn’t like the thought process behind it. 

“I mean I don’t think referring to female executives as inanimate objects is the example we want to set,” Roman shrugs, looking bored. “But sure, leave me at home with my thumb up my ass. That’s fine.” 

Ken tries to backtrack on the joke, kiss up to Gerri when he realizes the room has cooled to him, but the damage is done and Ken’s at his very lamest when he realizes he’s shat the bed on something. Roman lets him flail for the next hour, only chiming in when necessary. 

“Guess I’ll need someone else to read me my bedtime stories,” Roman bats his eyes at Karolina, right in Ken’s eyeline, and Karolina clicks her pen at him, a few people laughing at the COO being an idiot. 

_You good?_ he texts Gerri later. 

_Fantastic_ , she replies immediately. _Knew I should have fucking retired._

He knows by now that she doesn’t mean it, she’s too much of an adrenaline junky to step back from the job of her own volition. Sends her a link to a blog about living on a fixed income, just to be an asshole.

 _Fuck off,_ she texts, and he sends her a shitty little heart emoticon. 

“You’re not using company phones, right?” Karolina asks him later, alone in his office, and he panics for a second. Worries he left out his super secret phone, just sitting on his desk. 

“I’m stupid but not that kind of stupid,” he says, and she gives him a nod and then hands him a cookie that’s still warm.

“This homemade?” 

“Not by me,” she smiles. Heads out, onto her next thing. 

Isla’s school has their open house bullshit whatever tonight, so he takes off early, can’t talk long when Ken drags him into his office. 

“That comment about Gerri was a joke,” Kendall says. “Make sure she knows it was only a joke, okay?” 

“It took me a year of kissing her ass just so she could stand being in the same room with me, and you want me to fix the shit you stepped in?” Roman scoffs, fucking with his sleeves. “Fix it yourself. Though I doubt she cares about what either of us think of her anyway.” 

_You should be worried about that security blanket joke_ , Frank texts him on the way to Isla’s school, and Roman makes a frustrated motion at the phone screen because obviously he’s fucking worried about that joke, to say nothing about Gerri being tossed into the Senate shitshow. It feels like it might be a counterattack, meant to shake up a secret alliance Ken’s somehow gotten wise to, even though the dude’s a total clusterfuck. 

_Totally didn’t clock that because I was too busy jacking off under the conference table_ , he texts Frank, screen pivoted away from Isla so she can’t see it. 

“What’s that phone?’ she asks. 

“A backup,” he says, and he hates that he can’t just tell her the truth. Usually has a pretty firm rule against lying to his kid. 

“Does it have any games?” 

“No,” he says, and doesn’t have to fake his pout here. “I wish.” 

Isla’s new teacher is awkward and keeps telling him how smart Isla is, and yeah, obviously his kid is fucking brilliant, curious about anything and everything, but people who say that over and over are usually searching for nice things to say because they’re trying to be polite, aren’t sure how to talk about all her little quirks. 

“She reads a lot,” he smiles thinly. Doesn’t give her a lot of room for small talk but doesn’t risk being rude, offend someone who can take it out on his kid when he’s not around. 

“Matilda,” Isla pleads at bedtime, and Roman tries not to roll his eyes. Would be thrilled if he never had to hear any part of that book again. 

“How ‘bout you read it to me this time?” he asks, and Isla relents. Gets through two chapters before she can’t keep her eyes open anymore, her sentences stuttering off. 

“Night, rabbit,” he says, and slips the book out of her hand. “Love you.” 

He’s in bed, almost asleep, when Gerri calls. 

“I woke you,” she says, after he mumbles his hello. 

“Not quite.” He rubs his eyes, doesn’t bother to turn on the lamp. “How’s my security blanket holding up?” 

“I knew the DC bit was coming, Glad you didn’t try to fight it, draw his attention.” 

“I’m sorry I couldn’t fight it,” he says. “But clearly we need to be careful from here on out.” There’s the sound of water running, and he assumes she’s in her kitchen again, maybe pissed at her cleaning service for something else she can’t find, and that makes him smile. “Looking for your cordial glasses again?” 

“Hmm?” she asks, and then the sound of the running water stops, replaced by something else. “Oh, no. Just running a bath after that fucking nightmare of a day.”

“Mean,” he gasps, wide awake now, imagining her in a robe or maybe already naked. His breathing a little faster because he knows that she waited to call until this moment, not before, when she was eating dinner or drinking wine or whatever the fuck. “Cruel, heartless woman.” 

“As many have claimed,” she replies, and he can hear the smugness behind the words. That slight lilting tone she uses when she’s flirting with him, no one else around. 

“I’d ask you what you’re wearing, but I guess I already know.” 

“You’re only hope of getting a woman naked,” she says. “Someone multitasking while she draws herself a bath.” 

“A task, huh,” he needles. “So this is a business call? You have something urgent that couldn’t wait?” 

“I can let you sleep,” she says, her tone more uncertain now, and he rolls his eyes in the dark. 

“Don’t you dare,” he says. “Don’t even think about it. I want to know everything about what Gerri Kellman’s bathtime looks like.”

“Candles,” she supplies. “Cold martini at the ready. Bath products the girls got me as presents because they had no idea what else to buy me.” 

“What are your daughters like?” he asks suddenly. Feels desperately curious. 

“You’ve met them.” 

“Uh, yeah, when they weren’t even old enough to drive." He scrunches up his face, confused by the dodge.

“They’re not unlike me,” she allows. “Though that comes with its own challenges.” 

The answer’s so evasive, he knows to let the subject go, asks instead about the bath products she mentioned - what they smell like, what they do. 

“Tangerine?” he says after they’ve been chatting a while. “Huh, I thought it smelled like grapefruit.” 

“That's the face serum I use in the morning,” she corrects him. “This is a different thing and I don’t know that it even works.” A pause. “You remembered that it smells like grapefruit?” 

“I’m very creepy that way,” he replies. “Just spending my days, trying not to follow you around like a lost kitten.” 

“And yet you’re keeping this conversation surprisingly appropriate.” 

“I’m trying,” he says, closing his eyes here. “No matter that I’m wondering how flushed your skin gets from hot water and how far down the color goes.” A humming sound on the other end of the line. “And how else you might relax in the bath.” 

“Can’t tell you,” she says, and there’s nothing breathy at all about the way she says it, she could be shaving her legs for all he knows. But it’s not where his mind goes. “Wouldn’t be prudent.” 

“Fair,” he says, and decides to quit while he’s ahead. “Thank you for sharing your bathtime.” 

“Well you’re probably right outside, hiding in a tree, looking in my bathroom window right now.” 

“Nope,” he smiles, rolling onto his side. “But I’ll pencil that in for next week.” 

“Goodnight,” she says with a huff, clearly amused. But he hears the pause after, the way she waits before she hangs up.

“Your lips felt like velvet against my fingers,” he says, not making make her work for it. “And you deserve all the citrus skin products in the world. Goodnight.” 

. . . 

“Is that your stomach growling?” Roman asks Karolina in the conference room, and she glares at him because yes, it absolutely is, and they can all hear it. 

“I’ve been going since three this morning,” she says, the closest thing to a complaint he’s ever heard from her.

It’s seven o’clock at night and Ken went missing for the second half of the day, all of them huddled over a new Cruise’s story that might break, someone under Hugo who was fired and is claiming to have documents.

“You wanna do pizza at the house?” Frank asks.

“Not all of us live on junk food,” Gerri interjects. Slip her glasses off, rubbing her forehead like she can't process one more fucking thing.

“They do salads, too.”

“Have you ever even eaten one of them?”

Gerri and Frank continue to snipe back and forth, Roman already texting Lydia about his arrival time. It doesn’t occur to him until after he gets home that they decided to reconvene at his house without even checking with him, food and people already arriving as he hugs Isla, asks her about her school day.

“Some early birthday presents arrived today,” Lydia informs him. 

“Oh yeah?’ 

Her grandparents apparently sent along some antique dolls that used to belong to Grace’s grandmother, and Roman finds that creepy and a little morbid but knows that they’re trying, probably the best way they know how. 

“You want to call Nana and Papa before bedtime?” he asks Isla and she doesn’t answer, already dragging him by the hand to the playroom, clearly hellbent on showing him her other presents.

“Look!” she says, a massive dollhouse now sitting in the corner. “It has six bedrooms! And a dance studio! See? See, these dolls down there are dancing and there’s even a mirror and - and a bar for them to practice their positions, and it’s as tall as me!” 

“I see that,” he says, forcing himself to smile here. Really hopes this isn’t some misguided peace offering from Marcia because he had to intercept several elaborate Christmas presents last year. But this is too thoughtful to be from her, obviously custom made. 

Definitely not Tabitha, she’ll probably just send along a gift card. Maybe Shiv, if she was feeling guilty enough about something? 

“Goodnight,” Lydia tells him, always certain to let him know when she’s leaving. 

“Night,” he says automatically, then adds, “Hey, you happen to know who this from?” 

“Gerri!” Isla shrieks, Roman looking around now, assumes Gerri appeared in the doorway or something. But no, she didn’t, Isla’s just answering his question. 

“Ms. Kellman’s card is on the counter in the kitchen,” Lydia says. Waves goodbye again. 

“Well that was very nice of Gerri,” he says to Isla now. He should have known, but he isn’t sure what else to do here because he has a lump in his throat he can’t swallow down and Isla looks so happy, something inside of him feeling wrong, broken and hanging loose, because his daughter is happy even though her mother is dead. “Let’s make sure to thank her tonight, okay? This is a very thoughtful present.” 

“Yeah,” Isla says dreamily, already playing with her dolls again, and Eva appears in the door, a piece of pizza in her hand. 

“Ohhh, is that the dollhouse?” Eva asks, Isla completely ignoring her. 

“You knew about this?” Roman asks. 

“Not at liberty to say,” Eva smiles, then nods her head toward the hallway. “Come on, come eat some food before Frank eats all the good stuff.” 

Karolina turns up with her son, who is very clearly busy brooding about something, feet shuffling as he walks. 

“Nanny had a family emergency and Maja’s traveling,” Karolina explains, sounding apologetic, but Roman waves her off. Doesn’t need her to be sorry for having a life outside of fucking Waystar. 

“Isla’s in the play room in the back,” Roman tells them. “There’s an Xbox and a bunch of other stuff in the family room if you’re up for it.” That seems to dispel some of the brooding, her son disappearing to haunt the back of the house with Isla, Roman floating into the kitchen, picking up random food to shove in his face.

He sets up shop in the living room this time, Frank beside him on the couch, dribbling grease on his Italian leather sofa. 

“Dude,” Roman complains. “You’re worse than my fucking kid.” 

“I’ll get it,” Frank defends, people settling in to brief him on things he missed while he was covering all of the shit his brother should have been doing. 

“Where’s Gerri?” someone asks, and Roman looks up. He hasn’t seen her yet, isn’t sure if she turned up without him noticing.

“Her daughter’s in town,” Frank says. “She’ll be here later.” 

Frank and Karolina bring him up to speed on a new PR line for Parks and Roman gets out his phone, firing off a text to Gerri. 

_You’re welcome to take the night. Enjoy some family time._

He doesn’t get a response, stops checking it after the third time, Karolina pausing mid-sentence, clearly waiting until she has his full attention, Roman sliding his work phone back in his pocket while she parrots a talking point that Hugo floated. 

“Yeah,” he grimaces. “Tell Hugo that’s a fucking no.” 

“Okay,” she says. Smiles a little as she starts texting away on her phone, probably blowing up Hugo’s evening.

“Any news on Henry’s bullshit lawsuit?” Roman asks Eva, but she shakes her head 

“You’d have to ask Gerri, I’m sorry. Do you want me to text her?” 

“No, no,” he waves her off. “Let her have the night.” 

Gerri shows up an hour later anyway, Roman in the process of leading Isla up the stairs to do bedtime. 

“Gerri!” Isla shouts, sprinting down the stairs.

She almost slips on the third step, catching herself at the last second, and Roman sees his terror mirrored on Gerri’s face, her arms going around his kid when Isla finally closes the distance. 

“Honey, you have to be careful,” Gerri says, one hand on Isla’s head. “Your father only has one of you.” 

“Thank you for my present,” Isla says into Gerri’s blouse, face pressed against her stomach, and Roman watches from the top of the stairs. Feels frozen to the spot. 

“You’re very welcome,” Gerri replies. “But it’s real wood, not plastic, so be careful how you play with it, okay? No getting splinters.” 

“Isla,” Roman calls eventually. “Tell Gerri goodnight now. It’s time for bed.” 

“Can you do bedtime with us?” she asks Gerri.

“Isla,” Roman says, annoyed now. “Come on now, Gerri’s had a long day. You’ll see her soon.” But Isla throws a fit here and Roman regrets that she’s so much like him, never happy unless she gets her way immediately. 

“One chapter of Matilda,” Gerri says, voice firm. “But then sleep.” 

She looks exhausted, worn down, when she trudges up the stairs after Isla. Obviously hasn’t been home because her makeup’s wearing off, dark circles under her eyes, and Roman feels guilty about the fact that she left her own family to do this, deal with him and his. 

“Are you sure you don’t want to take off after this?” he asks while Isla’s busy brushing her teeth. “I told everyone not to bother you.” 

“They didn’t,” she says, sitting down on Isla’s bed, but her tone is off. “I promise, you didn’t drag me away from anything.” 

Isla clambers into bed, catching Gerri’s leg with her foot as she squirms, but Gerri only smiles, opens the book that’s already in her hand. 

Roman isn’t sure what to do, doesn’t want to just leave his kid in the hands of someone else when he gets so little time with Isla as it is lately, Gerri’s voice soft and soothing as she reads, her timing impeccable, never halting when she has to turn a page. 

“Another one,” Isla says when Gerri closes the book.

“Nope,” Roman says, and Gerri startles a little, like she forgot that he was there. “Sleep now.” 

Gerri gets up, heads out into the hall, and Roman tucks Isla in with a kiss to her forehead. Turns out the light and closes the door. 

“Eight years old tomorrow,” Gerri says, hovering in the hallway. 

“Yeah,” Roman sighs. Feels like the last six months just evaporated. 

“Birthdays are hard,” she says, voice soft. 

“A little weird,” he agrees, but he doesn’t really want to talk about it. Knows there’s nothing anyone can say to make him feel less crazy. “Thank you again for the dollhouse. She’s already in love with it.” 

“Just something I saw in a catalogue,” she says, and he smirks here, amused that she’s telling such an uncharacteristically clumsy lie. 

“That’s bullshit,” he says. “You’re a bad liar when you’re being sweet.” 

“Sweet would be a minority opinion,” she deflects. “Not many people would use that word to describe me.”

“Well, people are fucking idiots,” he says. Bumps her shoulder with his. “You’re very sweet. People just have to earn it.” 

“Mm, still not sure that’s right,” she pronounces. Looks looser now, less tired, that airy voice she uses when she calls him at night.

“Then you’re part of the wrongheaded majority,” he insists. “Which is a shame, because I really do count on you to be fucking right all the time.”

She smiles at that, a genuine one, and she’s holding herself so differently than when she first dragged in, he can’t stop himself from kissing her cheek before they reach the winding staircase. 

“What was that for?” she asks, words a little breathy. 

“Putting up with me,” he says. “Being charming and having a fucking delight reading voice.” 

“Is there a price for tonight’s compliments coming early?” she asks, smiling wider now, nothing at all like those tight smiles she doles out to people at work. “You didn’t kill a hooker or something, did you?” 

“Not today,” he drawls, Gerri laughing, and he’s so taken by the sound. “Oh, and you have a fun giggle.” He waggles his eyebrows. “That’s another compliment.” 

“You can stop now,” she says, but she’s blushing, smiling still too, and he shakes his head in response. Kisses her other cheek, her hand coming up to rest on the back of his head, a soft scrape of nails against his scalp. “Dork,” she says with the tiniest laugh, like bells tinkling, and when he pulls back, her hand stays in his hair. 

It’s impossible not to kiss her, not when he’s been going around, not kissing her for days and days.

She doesn’t freeze when he slants his mouth against hers, and that spares him a moment of panic because she’s kissing him back immediately, her hand still in his hair, and her lips are so soft, so impossibly soft against his dry ones, he doesn’t think this can be real. 

Their mouths are mostly closed, but then he feels her nails sharp against his neck, a prickle of pain that jolts down his spine, and he deepens the kiss, one of his hands grasping at her hip as his tongue skims her mouth.

“Where’s Roman?” he hears someone say, the sound of feet shuffling below, and Gerri springs away from him, eyes wide, obviously startled. 

“Heading down” Roman calls. Manages to move away only for Gerri to catch his arm, one hand wiping at his mouth. 

“Lipstick,” she explains, like he’s some kind of idiot, but he doesn’t care because she has her fingers on his lips, her face close to his again, and he knows what her mouth tastes like now. “Go,” she shoos him with a shove to his ass, Roman walking down the staircase alone, legs unsteady, like he’s eight beers in.

. . . 

  
  



	7. Chapter 7

“You’re in a good mood,” Tabitha says, when they’re almost through with lunch. 

“Woke up on the right side of the bed, I guess,” Roman dodges. Realizes he’s been smiling for no goddamn reason. 

“Uh huh,” she says, putting down her salad fork. “That’s believable. A totally normal thing that happens to people in the middle of a hostile takeover with corporate things exploding around them.” 

“Corporate things,” he repeats, his tone mocking. Throws the napkin from his lap onto the table. “They teach you that phrase in your MFA program?” 

“Fuck you and no,” she draws out the words. “Really, what gives?” 

“I don’t know,” he shrugs. “I slept well, plus Isla did a cute thing at breakfast. You wanna see?” He grabs his phone, thumbing through pictures as she waves him off, which is a relief because there’s no picture to show and Isla was actually crabby as fuck at breakfast, wouldn’t even eat her cereal. 

“People with kids are weird,” she says. “Weird and annoying.” 

“Guilty,” he smirks. But now he’s thinking about last night again, Gerri and Frank coming over for a huddle, Frank ducking out early to get to some show on time, Gerri staring at him from that wingback chair in the study, her eyes so fucking blue when he knelt down in front of her, one hand in her hair. 

“- but then he didn’t call,” Tabitha is saying, and Roman realizes he’s missed half her story about that dude she met last week. 

“Men are garbage,” he ventures. Banks on it being an evergreen statement. “You should stick to chicks.” 

“I just feel like I’ve been dating forever,” she sighs. “And I’m ready to be in a relationship again, not just this weird Boston marriage you and I have.” 

“Rude,” he says, motioning for the bill. “And wasn’t a Boston marriage two women?” 

“Your point?’ she smiles, like a bitch, and Roman skips flipping her off because apparently he never knows when someone’s taking his picture in a restaurant. “Oh shit, I meant to tell you.” 

“That you’re an asshole?”

“No,” she pronounces. “Your brother’s been palling around with Naomi Pierce.” 

“Connor?” 

“Ha,” she says. “No, the one with half a brain.” 

“Didn’t you date her?” he asks, worried now. Doesn’t like the idea of Kendall covorting with a member of the Pierce clan, probably while high off his balls. 

“Briefly,” she says. “But there were a lot of demons there and it was clear the drug use was less than casual. We stayed friendly.” She makes a face like she’s thinking. “Friendly-ish.” 

“Well that doesn’t sound great,” he says as they stand up. “There’s a reason recovering addicts aren’t supposed to fuck.” 

“Maybe they’ll make each other less lonely?” Tabitha offers. “You know, friendly ear and all that. Like with us.”

“Maybe,” he says, but he knows better. Has a sinking feeling about it already. 

_Ken’s hanging out with Naomi Pierce_ , he texts Gerri in the car. 

_Any chance Tabitha got that wrong?_ she asks immediately. 

_How’d you know it was her?_

_I know everything,_ she texts back when he’s getting out of the car, and he slips the little phone in his pocket, work phone now out, scrolling through emails that came through while he was at lunch. 

He’s in with Kendall in a bit, but he has a few calls to make to Cruises first, his first one is to Hugo, which will be just fucking delightful. 

“Hugo’s going to thank you for getting Ken to yank him from the Senate hearing,” Karolina tells him when running through something, right before he makes his calls. “Just go with it, okay?” 

“Alright,” he says, confused here. “Wanna tell me what the play is?” But Karolina only gives him an enigmatic smile, shakes her head before heading out of his office. 

Hugo kisses all over his ass just like Karolina predicted, which is useful in the long run. A handy thing to have in his pocket, no matter how much he loathes the little ferret. 

“Sure thing,” Roman says, hoping they wrap up soon. “You know me, I’m all about sticking with my people.” 

“We do know,” Hugo opines. “We do know and, Roman, it hasn’t gone unnoticed.” 

Gerri sticks her head into his office just as Hugo’s about to go in for a full rim job, and Roman waves her in eagerly, would be wrapping the phone cord around his neck if they still made phones with cords.

“Hey, I gotta hop off and talk to the lawyers about something,” Roman says. “Looking forward to that report though.” 

“Lawyers?” Gerri repeats. “Am I plural now?” 

“Sure,” he says. “Like the royal ‘we’. Only less fucking obnoxious.” 

“Charming,” she says, sitting down across from him. “Eva needs you to sign these again because apparently you signed in the wrong please.” 

“Did I now,” he drawls. “Hmm, silly me for being so distracted this morning.” He grabs a pen, going back and finding the tabs that have been carefully marked, a shitty note from Eva on one of them that makes him smile. “Isn’t dropping this off a little below your station?” 

“We all do what we have to keep Waystar spinning,” she says, a brief flutter of her eyelashes, but then she’s business through and through, talking him through Henry’s idiotic lawsuit and a few other things that keep circling the drain, eating up their time. 

“You never responded to my question,” she says on her way out, and he has to stop and think.

“No,” he scratches his face. “I doubt she got it wrong.” 

“Hmm,” she says, her expression dark here. Not a bad thing these days, her leaving his office looking a little bit pissed. 

“You yank Gerri’s chain again?” Ken asks them during their meet up, the two of them in the middle of debating some of the Cruises shit. 

“No more than I usually do,” Roman shrugs. “Why, what’s up?” 

“Because she looked annoyed as fuck coming out of your office and when I floated two of your ideas she shot them down straight off.” 

“She’s good at her job,” Roman says. “We don’t always have to like each other. And we certainly don’t have to agree on everything.”

“Weird that you still listen to her advice first,” Kendall points out, and Roman tries not to fidget. Still glowers when Ken starts doing that lame ass impression of his voice. “‘Hey Gerri, what do you think? Guys, uh, let’s see what Gerri says’.” 

“We’re being accused of dumping women’s bodies off cruise ships,” Roman drawls. Makes himself sound incredibly put upon. “You think it’s a bad optic to look to the women in the room first while trying to get out of the mess Logan left?” 

“Dude,” Kendall says. “I’m just ribbing you.” 

“Fuck around all you want,” Roman says. “But like, we clearly have a leak in the building and I don’t really want your shitty little jokes getting out, making us look worse.” 

“You think she’s still pissed about that security blanket joke?” 

“Like she’d fucking tell me,” Roman gestures wide. “She put up with dad’s shit, so clearly her tolerance for bullshit is pretty fucking high. But I worry that a dozen other people heard you make it.” 

“Alright,” Ken says, face contorting in that weird muppet-like guilt thing. “I’m an idiot, I get it.” 

“I didn’t say that,” Roman says. “But you keep taking your shit out on people and most of them could fucking sink us. Why do you think I’m always circling around Frank, listening to his dumb baseball stories? You think I want that dude turning state’s evidence someday because you walked in a bad mood one too many times?’ 

“You’re right,” Kendall says, and Roman gives him a dubious look. “No, you’re right. Most of the people in the C-suite know where the bodies are buried. We need them on our side.” 

“Thank you,” Roman says, and then they move on. “Like, I’m trying my best to be charming, drinks and dinners and bullshit. But it's a lot of work to blow all these dicks and I could maybe use some help.”

 _Be prepared for Ken to kiss both your asses until he falls off the wagon again,_ he texts Gerri and Frank after he gets back to his office. 

_I wouldn’t turn down box seats to the phil,_ Frank replies to the thread and Gerri never responds, is probably in a meeting and can’t take out the second phone. 

Isla has dance and Lydia’s out of town today, doing something for her daughter, so Roman leaves the office to pick his kid up. 

“We need to brief you on something with the Henry stuff,” Kendall stops him on the way out, Gerri hovering at his side. 

“It’ll have to wait,” Roman says, checking his phone to see the time. “I’ve gotta shuttle Isla across town.”

“Well I’m leaving for another meeting in forty-five minutes,” Gerri says, sounding impatient, just the right level of bite to her tone. 

“It can’t wait,” Kendall says, clearly in one of his weird, micro-managing moods today. 

“Fine,” Roman says, already maneuvering around them in the hall. “She can talk at me in the car.” 

Gerri trails him all the way to the elevator with a moody expression. Well, moody for her anyway, Roman motioning for to glide in first with a dramatic, asshole gesture that almost makes her break, lips twitching as she works to keep up the cool facade. 

“Being childish comes naturally to you, doesn’t it?” she asks once they’re alone, an amused lilt to her voice. 

“Only around you,” he replies, leaning back against the elevator wall, head ducked out of the camera’s view. “You look super hot today, by the way. Is that blouse new?” 

“It is,” she says, but doesn’t sound surprised that he noticed. Probably wouldn’t give that much away here, even if she were. 

“An excellent color on you,” he says. Winks at her as the doors slide open, three more people joining them in the elevator, taking up the precious empty space between them. 

It’s felt easier the past week, not so impossible when she sees her in the office or sits next to her at a conference table, and he’s not sure why that is. He should be fucking dying from the level of sexual frustration, but somehow he isn’t. Looks forward to hearing her voice on the phone at night, walks around strung out on the high of kissing her after the few times they’ve managed to be alone, outside of the office.

She’s looking down at her phone now and he watches her over someone random dude’s shoulder, thinks about the way her eyelashes fluttered closed when he touched her face last night, a finger tracing her jaw after he kissed her slowly for minutes on end.

“So what’s going on with the Henry bullshit?” he asks as they get in the car. Resists the urge to put a hand on the small of her back as they navigate the sidewalk.

“He won’t take a settlement,” she says. “Your brother’s worried about what might spill out in court.” 

“That would be most unfavorable,” Roman says carefully. Knows that Gerri’s had people poisoning the settlement well for a while now, made the option look as unappealing to the other side as possible. Force a few of Kendall’s shitty Vaulter decisions into the bright light of day. 

“Do you want me to put someone on that other thing you mentioned today?” she asks now, crossing her legs so that her foot drifts nearer to his, a movement Roman openly tracks, eyes running up and down the pale expanse of her calf. 

“I think that’s a Frank task,” he decides. “Assuming his connections with that particular family are still viable.” 

“Probably,” she agrees. Lets out a low, long breath as she watches his face, his eyes moving back to the pale skin of her knees, the blue fabric of her skirt riding up in a way that might not be entirely accidental. Fucking tease. 

Isla’s in rare form when they pick her up, hyper even for her. Clambers over him to sit in the middle, accidentally kneeing him in the groin as she goes, Gerri smothering a laugh as Roman grimaces, swallowing all the swear words his brain’s supplying, Isla spouting off a long, meandering summary of her day.

“Can Gerri come to see me dance?” Isla asks him, and Roman’s thrown off for a moment, has been checking his phone, triaging work emails.

“Rabbit, Gerri has to work today just like I do.”

“No,” she tugs his arm. “ _Saturday._ ” She has a recital on Saturday, the first of the season, but he wasn’t prepared for the question, doesn’t know how to tell her no.

“Honey, we’ve talked about directing questions to people so we’re not rude,” he says gently, running his hand through her hair. Easier to focus on the fact that she keeps asking about people right in front of them, like he has the authority to order around everyone and everything in order to meet her whims. 

He does, mostly. But that doesn’t mean wants her to know it - have her grow up with knowledge of her father’s money as the guiding force in her universe, the way he fucking did.

“Will you come watch me dance?” Isla asks Gerri, and Roman winces. He didn’t mean to throw her under the bus, make her the bad guy.

“Maybe,” Gerri says gently, Isla leaning against her now, and Roman gives her a small shake of his head. Doesn’t want Isla to get her hopes up only to be disappointed. “Frank and I have some work to do before I leave on a little trip, but maybe we can both make it to your recital before that?”

That might work and Frank would no doubt accept the invitation. His grandsons live out in Chicago now and Roman thinks Isla’s started to fill the gap their absence has left, a cute kid to dote on while Frank misses out on little league games or whatever the fuck kids do in a place like Chicago. 

“Where do you have to go?” Isla asks Gerri, and Gerri tilts her head, clearly weighing her words.

“Gerri has to go to DC for Waystar,” Roman answers. “She’s gonna impress some people who don’t like us very much. Show off how incredibly smart she is.” That earns him an eye roll as the car slows to a creep in front of the ballet studio.

He ushers Isla into the building, her dance bag thrown over his shoulder, an instructor relieving him of his kid and her shit right inside the door, Isla taking off at a sprint. He gets back into the car, mustering a yawn that’s only half feigned. 

“Will need some coffee on the way back,” he tells his driver, not looking at Gerri here.

“Anything for you, Ms. Kellman?” the driver asks when he pulls up to the Starbucks, car horns blaring as they park in a way that’s probably super fucking illegal.

“No, thank you,” she replies politely. Doesn’t look up from her phone until the door closes. 

“You don’t have to come to the recital,” he says, already sliding over in the seat. 

They’ll work late at the office the next few days and this is probably the only chance they’ll get until Saturday unless he engineers something. But doing that could be risky and he knows better. He thinks he knows better, anyway.

“I’d like to,” she says, her voice hushed as he touches her face. 

It’s a bad idea to mess up her lipstick when they only have a few minutes, but there’s still an advantage to bullet-proof, super tinted windows and it’s a shame to pass up the opportunity.

He kisses her neck carefully, feels her breath rush out in a gush when his mouth runs along a spot below her ear, but he doesn’t linger there, isn’t trying to wind her up. He just wants his lips on her skin, the smell of citrus around him as her hand finds the back of his neck, her thumb brushing back and forth as he places tiny, closed mouth kisses down her throat and then over, a parallel line that follows her necklace.

He’s back in his seat, both of their cell phones out, when his driver climbs back in, iced coffee in hand.

“Thanks,” Roman says, full of cheer as he takes the cup. “Feel better already.”

. . .

“Isla has a recital tomorrow,” he tells Kendall over some bullshit lunch with him and Karl, a few other people who only want to blow smoke up their asses. “You wanna come?”

“I think I have the kids,” Ken apologizes, and Roman knows he’s lying. Would be able to tell even if Rava’s lawyer hadn’t told him that he hasn’t taken his days with Iverson and Sophie in months. 

“They can come too,” Roman digs in. Knows that Ken probably has plans with Naomi Pierce, maybe the two of them and a small mountain of coke, which is epically stupid because Ken leaves for DC late Sunday night. 

“They’d really love that,” Ken bullshits. “But everything’s been so fucked lately and I haven’t had any time alone with them, just the three of us. Rain check, okay?”

The last part makes Roman grind his teeth because this is the part about a Kendall fucking up that he’s never understood. It’s one thing to screw up at work and walk around numb from booze or drugs - Roman did all of that for most of his twenties. But how does Ken just blow off his kids? Miss bedtimes and bullshit school meetings, breathless, convoluted stories about things that happened school or on TV, his kid so fucking excited to get it all out that they’re tripping over the words. 

“No worries,” Roman manages, Karl talking to someone on the other side of the table, his annoying as shit voice droning on and on. “The time with them is the most important thing, I’m glad you’re taking it.”

He sees his brother flinch a little at that and he doesn’t regret jabbing the knife in farther, just wants out of this restaurant as fast as he can manage it.

 _Brunch on Sunday?_ he texts Shiv later. Needs to do some work on Wambsgans, away from Ken and the prying eyes of the office.

 _Our place?_ Shiv replies, which is probably the best option anyway. Will make her idiot husband a little less guarded.

 _Perfect._ He adds a moment later, _Isla still hates eggs._

He gets a snide comment back to that last part but he ignores it, has bigger fish to fry than his sister’s bitchy messages. 

He has a meeting with Cyd and Karolina in the afternoon, maybe Gerri too if she can get out of another thing in time. But if not it’ll probably be Eva, maybe Chris.

Karolina and Legal are both late, Cyd checking her watch a few times, no doubt has something right after. But there’s nothing they can do but wait, Roman folding a piece of paper into a little football and sliding over his desk with a grin.

“I always kick your scrawny little ass at this game,” she warns him. “Wanna put money on your humiliation?”

“Loser kisses Wambsgans on the mouth,” he announces, and she flubs the first shot because of that, the paper sailing far right of his fingers.

“Mouthy little snake,” Cyd grouses as he fist pumps, and he doesn’t care that she has arthritis in both her hands, he’s going to wipe the floor with her.

She’s one point away from beating him when Karolina and Gerri walk in, Roman making a show of ending the game as Cyd flicks the paper at his face.

“A mooching coward just like my first husband,” Cyd announces, affection in her voice, and Karolina shakes her head, Gerri settling in a nearby chair.

“Should have gotten it in writing,” Gerri tuts, and Roman nods. Leans on his hands here with a shit eating grin.

“Listen to the lawyer,” he says, and Cyd makes an obscene gesture that makes him laugh and Karolina pull a face. “Alright, let’s get down to firing some neo-Nazi ass.”

It’s all pretty cut and dry, Cyd offers the usual objections she doesn’t actually mean, Karolina drums up the talking points while Gerri nods every few sentences, taking copious notes. 

It could have been done over the phone but he hasn’t seen Cyd in a while, didn’t think it was the worst idea to get some face-to-face time, remind her how much she likes him.

“Kendall’s in,” Roman smiles mischievously. “If you want to say hello.”

“Wouldn’t want to waste the CEO’s time,” Cyd lies, and he laughs in her face. Flicks the paper football at Gerri as everyone files out, Gerri batting it away with a quick flick of her legal pad, the paper landing neatly in the trash can.

 _I didn’t realize you and Cyd were so friendly_ , she texts him later, and he smirks, recognizes the setup for what it is.

_That’s my godmother you’re casting aspersions about._

_And I’m your sister’s godmother_ , she shoots back. _A tidy little circle, one could say._

He chews his lip after that, isn’t sure where to take the joke that won’t go too far, be too crass. But then someone in Parks calls about something and his attention gets pulled away, fielding phone calls and approving things Karolina sends him over email.

Lydia seems distracted when he gets home, a little spacey, and that makes him worried as he watches her buzz about.

“Everything alright with your daughter?” He should put it more delicately than that, knows her daughter’s having some kind of health scare, but he’s worn down from the day, running decidedly low on tact.

“She’s having surgery in two weeks,” Lydia says. Sounds like she’s trying to downplay her concern. 

“Wanna take the week with her? Go to Connecticut when she’s recovering, maybe before?” She hesitates, and he rushes to add, “Paid time off. Family leave or whatever.”

Lydia hedges about it, knows it’ll be putting him in a bind, but he can always get his assistant to pitch in, make the part-time nanny go full-time for a week or two. 

“I’ll consider it,” she says before she ducks out for the night. “Thank you, Mr. Roy.” 

The title still makes him grimace but she never seems to budge on the subject and he doesn’t think it’s worth quibbling about, not when Isla likes her so much and she’s so easy to have around.

“Is Gerri coming tomorrow?” Isla asks him over dinner. 

“Yep,” he smiles. “Frank, too.”

The vague plan is the recital and dinner out, a happy fucking Waystar family, then back to the house for shadow dealings and Isla’s bedtime. 

Frank normally cuts out early, but Roman isn’t sure if he will this time, not with so much to talk about in the run up to the Senate hearing. But maybe if he does -

“Can Emily sleepover tomorrow?” 

“We’ll talk to her parents,” he hedges. He really hopes not, but he’d be a selfish asshole to say no just because he’s hoping to get Gerri alone.

Isla doesn’t want to read before bedtime, Roman bickering with her about her wanting the iPad in bed. 

“I don’t _want_ a book,” she pouts, arms wrapped around Mr. Bugs' neck, strangling the stuffed animal for all she’s worth. 

“No screens at bedtime,” he shakes his head. It makes him the biggest hypocrite in the fucking world, but such is parental life. 

He’s fresh from a shower, towel still wrapped around him when Gerri calls.

“Perfect timing,” he says, feeling extra cheeky now. “Cyd’s just getting her panties back on.” He hears the huff of surprised laughter on the other end, tries to imagine the delighted expression on her face while he rummages in his drawer for some clean shorts.

“And to think I was worried my joke earlier went too far,” she says, and he remembers now that he never responded to her text. 

“No,” he dismisses, wondering here if she’d actually worried. It seems unlike her, but he thought he had her pegged a year ago and clearly he didn’t, allows for the fact that there are things that go on beneath the calm surface. “I thought it was funny, just got caught up with some tedious bullshit with Parks.”

“Ah.”

“I like your sense of humor,” he presses. “It’s one of my favorite things about you.”

“Is it now.” She’s fishing and they both know it, but he doesn’t care. Will happily stand here all night, listing off the things he likes about her, doesn’t mind starting earlier than usual.

“Aside from the voice and steel trap of a mind,” he says. “Hold on a second.” He puts her on a speaker while he closes the drawer, shimmying into the shorts and kicking the wet towel toward the hamper. “Sorry,” he says after the pause. 

“Still in the middle of kicking Cyd out post-romp?” she asks, and he falls back onto the bed.

“Nah,” he huffs out a sigh. “Had to get some shorts on. Just finished showering away that miserable fucking day.”

There’s a long pause after that, maybe an awkward one, but he wasn’t trying to lead the conversation anywhere. He was honestly just chatting through his evening routine. 

“Isla’s excited,” he says, at the same time she says, “How big is your shower?” and then they both stop, Roman unsure which way to go.

“Big enough for two,” he says, when she doesn’t bridge the long silence. “Know anyone who’d like to see it?”

“Plenty of people interested in bathroom renovations,” she breezes, and he bites his lip. Isn’t sure if she’s backing them off from something dangerous or just making him work for it.

“You know I mean all the compliments, right?” he asks suddenly. He doesn’t have any idea why this strikes him as so incredibly important now, but it does, the idea that she might think he’s just buttering her up with empty flattery settling over him as a cold doubt, sharp in his chest. “I wouldn’t bullshit you about that stuff.”

“No,” she says. Says it so softly that the word feels like a caress. “Rome, no, I know that.”

“Stay after Frank leaves tomorrow?” he asks, a rush of anxiety here because they haven’t planned it before, only seized on the fleeting moments of privacy when they’ve fallen into their laps. 

“Yes,” she says, but it’s mostly breath again, Roman’s face heating up at the sound. 

“Stay,” he repeats. “Let me kiss your mouth because I couldn’t in the car, no matter that you were teasing me with your perfect legs and your goddamn perfume -“

“I wasn’t.”

“You were,” he says, more feverish now. “You always do. With your glasses and your sly looks that no one sees, and your soft skin and your pointed jokes -”

“Rome.” It’s basically a groan, the sound going right to his dick because isn’t sure what she’s doing on the other end of line, isn’t brave enough to ask.

He thinks about her when he masturbates, but it’s only ever in flashes; her voice, her hair, the soft skin of her arm. It’s like his mind draws a blank when it reaches for the next step, everything that comes after kissing, but he thinks it’s just been too long, he and Grace rarely in the same city during that last year she was alive and even then, always pissed off at each other. Never more than a quick kiss on the cheek, usually as they parted ways. 

“I want to touch you all the time,” he says, straining to hear the sounds on the other end, but all he hears is her breathing. “Gerri, I think about touching you all the time. The moment I wake up. You have to know that.”

“ _Roman_.” This times it’s a gasp, and now he doubts that she’s just listening patiently, hand idle at her side.

“Is that what you’re thinking about now? Me touching you when we’re all alone?” 

“I should go,” she says, and it’s as hurried as it is breathy.

“Gerri,” he says, his voice harsh, foreign to his own ears. “Tell me what it is you're doing right now.”

“I should go,” she repeats, her voice strangled. Desperate, maybe panicked. 

She hangs up before he can get another word in.

. . .

Shiv texts him in the morning to say that Kendall’s going to join them for brunch the next day, and that’s less than ideal but he can work with it. Certainly a good chance that Ken no-shows anyway. 

_Cool_ , he texts her. Decides to leave it at that.

He has to go into the office, a knot of anxiety in his stomach about seeing Gerri today. Knows he crossed a line, probably fucked things up. 

It’s a bad idea, they’ve both agreed before that this thing between them is a bad idea, a dangerous thing for the two of them to be doing. But they've been so careful so far, never losing control, and it’s only been kissing. Mostly - mostly it’s just been kissing, after everyone else has left, and they never take off their clothes and there are no hands below the waist, and Roman was so sure he could survive on the kissing alone, Gerri’s fingers threaded through his hair. 

He sees Frank walk by with Hugo, Hugo sure to throw a big, kiss-ass wave through the glass to Roman, Roman glad he’s on the phone so he doesn’t have to dodge talking to that fucking clown. 

Tom comes in later, last minute prep for the Senate shit, and Roman's careful to stay clear. Doesn’t want Wambsgans to corral him before brunch tomorrow, not when Frank’s putting something in motion with Hugo. 

“You free for lunch?” Tom asks him later. Leans his freakishly tall body against Roman’s office door, probably aiming for casual but only looking awkward and ridiculous. “Hugo and I are popping down for a little nosh.” 

“I wish,” Roman sighs. Really tries to sound busted up about it. “I’m gotta tug a bunch of dicks over the phone so I can get off in time to do a thing with Isla tonight.” 

“Ohhh, the recital,” Tom says, and Roman tries not to react. Really hopes that Tom isn’t about to invite himself, a lame fifth wheel that nobody wants. “Right, right.” 

“Yep,” Roman forces a smile. “They’re long and lame, but I gotta go.” 

“Well Shiv and I would love to go to the next one,” Tom says, and Roman smirks. Knows his sister would rather sit on a rusty nail than go to something like that. “Keep us posted, okay?” 

“Sure thing,” Roman nods. “Remind me tomorrow and we’ll plan it.” 

Hugo comes to collect Tom like a dog walker scooping up a pile of shit off the sidewalk. Leads him down the hall and safely away from Roman’s door, off to fill Tom’s head with bag advice about how to handle the Senate hearing, undercut all the prep that Gerri’s been giving him without leaving fingerprints.

He doesn’t see Kendall all day, which isn’t surprising but is still a little worrisome. They need Ken to falter on Monday, put up a less than stellar showing, but anything worse than that could do more harm than good. He decides that brunch with Shiv will be a good check-in. If Ken no-shows at Shiv’s it gives him all day to find him. Clean him up before throwing him on the plane with Gerri and the others.

“I don’t rate an invite to the ballet?” Karolina needles him later on, when she pops in for just a moment. 

“You totally do,” he smiles. “But I assumed you’re on the hook for enough kid shit of your own.” 

“Soccer this year,” she says, pulling a face, and Roman laughs. Just knows her kid must be fucking horrible at it. 

“We’re doing dinner after,” he says. “Want me to text you?” 

“Maja’s parents are in town,” she says, sounding really fucking sour now. “But let’s manage drinks sometime soon. Figure out a night that actually works.” 

“Good luck with your mother-in-law,” he singsongs, and she ignores him. Not even a glare on her way out. 

“Are we taking multiple cars?” Frank asks before he leaves to grab Isla, and Roman pauses here. Remembers that last car ride with Frank and Gerri, Gerri’s shoulder brushing against him when the car weaved through traffic on the way to the Carlyle. 

“Unless you want to sit in my lap,” Roman says, a little on edge now. “But don’t be late. Isla wants to see you guys beforehand.” 

She actually only asked to see Gerri, but Frank doesn’t have to know that. Not when Isla likes him, always giggles at his lame ass jokes and the way he pretends to find a quarter behind her ear.

“Are we meeting there?” he hears Gerri ask Frank in the hall, thinks she’s trying to catch his eye as he packs up his stuff and heads out. But Roman doesn’t stop to touch base, only slows down once to goad Eva when she passes him in the hall. 

“You see that game?” he asks with a smirk. 

“Yeah, yeah,” she waves him off. 

“Your fuckin’ Mets will never have a ninth inning like that,” he taunts her, the words thrown over his shoulder as he heads to the elevator. 

Lydia’s still trying to get Isla ready when he gets home, which means there’s a decent chance they’ll be late now. 

“You need to hurry if you want to see Gerri before you have to stretch,” he tells Isla, and she immediately calms down, pulling her tights on and finding her shoes. 

“Tell Ms. Kellman I said hello,” Lydia smiles as Isla whines that she’s ready to go, Roman chugging a beer in the kitchen because he needs something to take the edge off. 

It’s a bad idea for Isla to dance on a full stomach, they’ve learned that lesson the hard way before, but he gets her to eat a peanut butter bar-thingy in the car for energy, Roman carefully cleaning her fingers with napkin before she can wipe them all over her dance clothes. 

“Does Gerri know I dance twice?” Isla asks him, for the millionth time. 

“We’re going to be there for the whole thing,” he replies. Probably needs to start diverting her attention from Gerri, just in case. “Don’t forget to thank Frank for coming too, okay?” 

“Okay,” Isla says, already looking out the window. Probably trying to gauge how close they are. 

Isla rushes Frank when she sees him, Gerri nowhere in sight. Roman doesn’t think she’d bail on Isla no matter their weirdness from last night, still half expects her to make an excuse that gets her out of dinner after, but that’s fine and easily manageable. Her no-showing to this is not. 

“Where’s Gerri?” Isla asks, and Frank begins to look around. 

“I haven’t seen her yet,” Frank says. “Maybe she’s still in traffic, kiddo.” 

Roman isn’t a complete moron, he knows that lots of people are going to disappoint his kid - people she loves and trusts will let her down, time and time again. He just doesn’t want this to be one of those times, hopes that Gerri’s actually running behind. 

“You ready to nail it?” Roman asks after a few minutes of waiting. Isla’s hands in his, the two of them swinging their arms like they used to when she was younger, when she’d squirm so much he’d worry she might wriggle right out of her own skin. 

“Yeah,” she says, but it's half-hearted. 

“That’s not very believable,” Frank says, Roman swinging their arms a little harder, Isla starting to smile even as keeps looking around the rapidly filling theater, still no sign of Gerri. 

“Time to head on back,” Roman says eventually, forcing a cheerful smile. 

“But I want to see Gerri first,” she complains, and he doesn’t know what to say here. Still hasn’t decided on the words. “Gerri!” Isla screams, taking off at a clip, Roman turning around to see Gerri standing at the entrance, a small bunch of yellow flowers tucked under her arm. 

“If her daughters could see her now,” Frank shakes his head, but Roman doesn’t know what that means. Not when Gerri’s standing in soft pink clothes she would never wear to work, hugging his kid and handing her roses, Isla clearly talking at her a mile a minute as Gerri leads her by the hand through the crowd. 

“Sorry to cut it so close,” she apologizes when she gets to them. “Though I’d given myself more time.” 

“I’ll hold onto your flowers for you,” Roman says to Isla, if only for something to do here. “You really need to go stretch out with everyone now.” 

More than half the seats are taken already and it takes a second to find three grouped together, but Gerri spots some in the middle, not too far from the stage. Touches Roman’s elbow to get his attention. 

Frank settles in the far seat, which had been what Roman planned to do, but instead he’s stuck in the middle, only a flimsy armrest between him and Gerri. Immediately concedes the real estate when she props her arm on it, program in her hand as she digs in her purse for her phone. Checks the screen before she hits a button, probably turning it to silent. 

“You see that baseball game last night?” Frank asks him. 

“Sure did,” Roman says. Tries not to think about Gerri’s cardigan or how different she looks in it, long earrings dangling from her ears. “Mentioned it to Eva on the way out.” 

“Mets fans,” Frank shakes his head. “Will never understand them.” 

“Some people like living on hope,” Gerri says, eyes on her program. “Not everything has to be easy.” 

Roman doesn’t know what to say to that, definitely doesn’t trust himself to speak, but soon enough the lights dim and the announcements begin, music that’s a little too tinny piped in from multiple speakers. 

He doesn’t remember to turn his own phone on silent until after the first solo, catches it after the first ping of a text from Tabitha asking if he’s free, Gerri giving him a quick glare as he types out a reply. But then he puts his phone away and he feels her shift, legs crossing in a way that puts her knee solidly against his, and he slides his arm back onto the arm rest. Feels better, more settled, with his arm flush with hers. 

Isla only makes one tiny mistake in the second dance, doesn’t telegraph it at all, which makes him clap harder than anything, Frank to his left, fingers to his mouth in a whistle as Gerri claps softly, program under her arm. 

“What are we doing for dinner?” Frank asks as soon as the lights come up, and Roman’s almost certain he hears Gerri scoff. 

“Rabbit requested Carbone,” he replies. “So that’s where I made the reservation.” 

“Is there anything on that menu she’ll eat?” Gerri asks. 

“She’ll eat her weight in lobster ravioli,” Roman says, remembering to grab Isla’s roses off the floor. “No problem there.” 

Isla greedily grabs for her flowers the second she finds them, Frank and Gerri quick to tell her how well she danced, Isla soaking up all the attention like the world’s loudest, most adorable sponge, Roman scooping his kid into a hug that she allows for maybe five seconds, quick to peel off to someone beside them.

“We meant to text you,” Emily’s mom says to Roman. “Is it okay if Isla spends the night tonight?”

He can’t be sure, but he thinks Gerri turns her head a little here, clearly listening as she pecks out a message on her phone. 

“Yeah,” Roman says. “Of course. But we have a family thing tomorrow, so I’ll have to scoop her up around nine if that’s not too early.” 

“Emily never sleeps past seven,” the mom supplies in a beleaguered tone, and yeah, Roman totally fucking knows that life. 

“We’re doing dinner at Carbone,” Roman says. “If you want to join us.” 

“We’d hate to cramp your reservation,” the dad says, and shit, Roman should really know their names by now. Just has them in his phone as ‘Emily N.’s parents.’

“Eh,” Roman says. “I’m sure they’ll accommodate us. But no worries if you have other plans for dinner.” 

They don’t and maybe he should feel bad about springing total strangers on Frank and Gerri, but he thinks maybe this will be better, a little less awkward than the three of them trying to get through a meal with little to no talk about Waystar. 

“Sorry,” Roman says, after a minute of chatter. “These are some family friends.” 

“Gerri Kellman,” Gerri says, extending her hand with a polite smile, and Roman pulls out his phone, quickly typing out ‘Min and Daniel N’ into the contact info after the introductions are finished. 

Isla rides with Emily and her family, Gerri and Frank piling in with Roman, his driver quick to nod his head to the cooler of beverages. 

“Did you have any idea what their names were before that?” Gerri drawls and Roman hands Frank the beer he just cracked open. 

“Fuck no,” Roman admits, reaching for another beer. 

“I only ever knew last names and phone numbers,” Frank says. “But that was in the dark ages, before cell phones.” 

“I just let the nannies handle it all,” Gerri shrugs, Roman a little incredulous at that. 

“Really?” he asks. 

“I was working,” she says with a huff, eyes on her phone now. “Where’s Tabitha? I thought she’d be here.” 

Tabitha is about as likely to be caught at an eight-year-old’s ballet recital as Shiv fucking is, and Roman knows Gerri’s smart enough to clock that. This is probably a bit of smoke and mirrors for Frank’s benefit, which makes him uncomfortable.

“We’re in a weird place,” Roman lies, just wants to keep it vague, not out and out use Tabitha as a beard. 

“Serves you right for fucking her,” Gerri says, and Roman winces. Wishes she hadn’t gone that far. Certainly doesn’t like the verb choice.

“What?” Frank says, a dumb fucking smile on his face. “Seriously?” 

“It’s none of your business,” Roman says. “And it’s none of Gerri’s either.” 

“Sorry,” Gerri offers. Steals the beer from his hand and takes a sip before handing it back. “But you did come to me for advice.” 

“I wouldn’t have to if women weren’t so fucking mercurial,” he shoots back, feeling petulant now.

“We wouldn’t be so mercurial if men didn’t change their minds all the time,” she replies, and oh, that’s just fucking delightful. 

They beat the other car to the restaurant, Roman using his name to change the reservation, get all of them seated without delay, Frank zipping off to use the men’s restroom because Gerri’s right, he should really get his fucking prostrate checked. 

“Seriously?” Roman says to Gerri, as soon as they’re alone at the table. 

“Please,” Gerri rolls her eyes. Fluffs the napkin into her lap. “You’re telling me you’ve never lied about sleeping with a woman to score some male posturing points? This is no different.” 

“It is different,” he says. “And for the record, no, I fucking haven’t. Not as an adult human with a teaspoon of common sense.” 

“Really?” she arches an eyebrow, clearly disbelieving, Isla and Emily’s family turning up at the front, Roman waving them over. 

“Lara Patterson,” he says, eyes trained on Isla as she weaves her way through the crowded dining room, flowers still gripped in her hands. “I lied in middle school about getting to third base with her, but then everybody called her a slut and it made her cry. The lesson stuck, no matter that I’m a dick with very little regard for others.”

Isla weasels her way between him and Gerri, which is probably for the better now, Frank returning from the bathroom as everyone’s getting settled, Roman rattling off a list of appetizers to the server, Gerri ordering a few bottles of wine for the table. 

“And you both work for Waystar?” Emily’s dad asks, halfway through dinner.

“They keep trying to chew through their chains,” Roman says glibly. “But I always catch them before they can make their escape.” He feels Gerri’s heel connect with his leg after that, not quite a kick, more than a nudge, certainly not an attempt at footsie. But Roman ignores it because everyone laughs, Emily’s mom going on and on after that about the law firm her father worked at his whole fucking life.

“Can I have more ravioli?” Isla asks, after she’s decimated what’s on her plate. 

“I already ordered more,” Roman promises. “Just be patient, rabbit. It’ll be here soon.” 

Isla throws her head back dramatically at that, Gerri tsking softly even as she cards her fingers through Isla’s hair. 

“Do you want to try this?” Gerri points to her own plate, but Isla takes one look at the mushrooms in the pasta and pulls a face. “A ‘no, thank you’ would suffice.” 

“No, thank you,” Isla parrots back, already looking around, eyes zeroing in on Frank’s plate. 

“It’s spicy,” Frank warns. 

“That’s okay,” Isla says, Frank sighing as he pushes his plate toward Isla. 

Isla’s sleepy and full after dinner, quiet too, and it’s hard to send her off into the night now, not when Roman knows that it’d be a good night to cuddle and read stories until she falls asleep. 

“Be good,” he kisses her forehead. Holds her tight for a minute, Isla hugging Frank and Gerri before she clambers into the other car. 

“She’s a good kid,” Frank says. “You really broke the curse with her.” 

“Don’t jinx it,” Roman says, isn’t really kidding. “Save that shit for when she’s eighteen.” 

“I think you’re fine,” Gerri says. Slides her arm through his, which feels like a bad choice, Frank standing right next to them on the street. 

“So Tabitha?” Frank prompts, and Roman can see Gerri flinch out of the corner of his eye. 

“Some things are private,” Roman sighs, hands in his pockets as the car pulls up. “I know that sounds old fashioned. Cliché or whatever the fuck. But some things should just be private, you know?” 

“Good for you, kiddo,” Frank pats him on the back, Gerri squeezing his arm before they all get in the car. 

. . . 

“How’s Ken looking on prep?” Frank asks, a little bleary eyed. Probably all the heavy food and the late hour topped off with the beers Roman keeps handing him. 

“Decent on his good days,” Gerri says, martini in her hand. “But then he fell flat on his face after his bender last week, so it really just depends on his sobriety. Whether Roman wants to wind him up.” 

“Hugo give Tom the business?’ Roman asks, trying hard not to look over at Gerri. She’s been staring at his mouth for the last few minutes and it’s fucking distracting, his hands sweaty where they rest against the leather of the couch.

“Yeah,” Frank nods, looking half asleep now. “Told him that Gerri’s advice was bullshit and he should eat up as much time as he can.” He gestures with his beer. “He’ll probably spew words like a keg at a frat party if you give him another nudge.” 

“That’s one down,” Roman sighs. “I’ll figure out the Ken stuff tomorrow. We’re supposed to have brunch at Shiv’s, so I’ll try to get a feel for him then.” He yawns, arms stretched over his head. “Any idea yet if Naomi Pierce is a Waystar problem?”

“Pierce family doesn’t know anything,” Frank shrugs. “So if Naomi’s hatching some kind of deal involving Ken, no one else knows about it. Not any of the lesser cousins and certainly not Nan.” 

“What about Rhea Jarrell?” Gerri asks, and Frank grimaces. 

“Let’s hope not,” Frank says. 

“Wait, who’s that?” Roman asks. Feels a little fuzzy around the edges, too much beer on top of the wine and carbs, and now Gerri sitting across from him, eyes pinning him to the couch every time Frank isn’t looking. 

“Their CEO,” she supplies. 

“A snake in the grass if ever there was one,” Frank says, glancing at his phone. “Fuck. Osaka wants a conference call.” 

“It’s eleven o’clock at night,” Roman pulls a face. “Tell them to go blow themselves, they work for us.” 

“Then I’ll just deal with their sniveling excuses tomorrow,” Frank complains, making all of his usual old man noises when he haltingly gets off the couch. 

“I’m buying you a personal trainer for Christmas,” Roman says as he watches the labored movements with a frown. 

“Fuck you, I’m fine.” 

“It might be nice,” Gerri says. “If they’re anything like the ones he hired for himself, they’ll throw in a hand job at the end.” 

“I was twenty-seven,” Roman defends. “And I had no idea that exchange was transactional until after he charged me.” 

“And we work for this clown,” Frank says, his parting shot before he leaves, the two of them listening for the sound of the door locking after he disappears.

“You sure you’re okay doing a family meal tomorrow?” Gerri asks, standing up from her chair. His eyes follow her as she gets up, moving toward him slowly, like he’s a horse that might bolt if startled.

“You mean, can I, Roman Roy, break bread with my family before stabbing them in the back?” He shrugs, making a weird sound as she settles into the couch, one shoulder pressed against his. “I’ve done worse.” 

“I know this isn’t what you wanted,” she tilts her head. Pulls off her glasses, rubbing the bridge of her nose.

“No other choice,” he says. Tries not to wonder how many times Logan said that to her when he was about to do something unbelievably shitty. Then again, he never heard his dad rationalize anything, just plowed forward, mowing people down. 

“I’m sorry about the Tabitha thing,” she says. 

“S’okay.” 

“No, it isn’t,” she says with a dry laugh. “You were right. It was wrong of me to use your friendship with her as a cover.” 

“We don’t have to use anyone as cover,” he says. Swallows now as he stares at her, her face flushed from all the booze. The most delicate pink he’s ever seen. “Not if we aren’t doing anything we need to hide.” 

“Certainly the smartest option,” she says, a little frown here, and he grabs her hand, pulls her so that she’s flush with his lap. 

She sighs into the first kiss, his whole body relaxing when he feels it, because no matter how bad of an idea it is, he walks around waiting for this now, even when everything is awful at work, moving at breakneck speed. 

“I like what you’re wearing tonight,” he breathes against her mouth, but then she’s kissing him and he can’t say anything, can’t even manage the space to apologize about last night. 

“Oh,” she says, when he moves his mouth to her neck after they’ve been kissing for minutes on end. There’s a spot a few inches below her ear that made her suck in a breath when he touched it in the car, and he finds it again, worrying the skin with teeth before he kisses it, one of her hands threaded through his hair, the other resting on his leg. “Oh,” she says again when he sucks on on that same inch of skin, nails scratching at his scalp, her body shifting farther into his lap. 

They haven’t gone this far before, it’s only been soft, long kisses until their lips are bruised, her hair left mussed from his fingers. But today’s been so long and confusing, DC looming in front of them, Gerri and Frank sniping at each other all week because everyone’s wound so fucking tight. 

They just need to release a little tension, that’s all. 

“You smell so good,” he says between kisses. “How do you always smell so good this late in the day?” She only hums in response, pressing her mouth back to his, one of his hands running up and down her back, vaguely tracing her spine. “Shit ,” he says when his other hand brushes her breast, and he feels like a twelve-year old boy all over again, unsure and overexcited, not yet startled by taste and touch. 

She settles more squarely in his lap after that, her tongue sliding deeper into his mouth, and he touches her breast again, feels her arch against his hand. 

He isn’t sure how long they make out when her soft, airy sounds turning into something throatier, his dick so hard there’s no way she can’t feel it. Feels her push into him as she shifts to get leverage, sucking his tongue into her mouth in a way that’s completely pornographic, and then he feels her pressing down harder, grinding against his erection, his hips shooting up of their own volition, trying to chase the friction.

“Fuck,” she whines against his mouth, and the neediness of the sound is so unlike her, it jars him back to reality.

“We should stop,” he says, wrenching his mouth away, and her eyes are blown so wide, her bottom lip puffy, it’s hard not to suck it back into his mouth.

“You’re right,” she says, brushing her hair out of her face. “Yes... Yes, you’re right.” But she’s so beautiful and she’s right there, smelling like the middle of summer no matter that it’s turning cool outside, he can’t help kissing her again, his hand cupping her face. Soft, long kisses of the kind they usually limit themselves to, Roman patient and thorough because she’s fucking exquisite, so deserving of more than anything he could give her. “God,” she groans, pulling away again. “You’re a weak-willed little hypocrite.” 

“The other option is to be an idiot,” he says, a little dazed. Blood flow definitely diverted from his brain. “Not kiss you when I have the chance. And I’m on record as being very anti-waste.” 

“And you’re also unbelievably full of shit,” she announces. Leans in to give him one more kiss before she shifts off him, already reaching to fix her hair. 

“I didn’t mess it up this time.”

“Thank you,” she says waspishly. “But you still owe me for one blowout.” 

He kisses her cheek at the door, but that’s all. Knows she’ll end up pinned against the wall if he attempts even a quick kiss goodbye.

“Goodnight,” he says. But before he can open the door she kisses him again, one that was probably meant to be sweet and short until he grabs her by the hips, sucking her bottom lip into his mouth, her hands immediately fisting into his shirt. 

“I was trying to leave,” she promises, but he’s got her pinned against the door now, his mouth on her neck, one of his hands sliding up her blouse. 

“You should go,” he mumbles, mouth still pressed to her skin. “Definitely need to leave before I do something we regret.”

She groans, pushing him away with a truly vulgar curse, Roman laughing a little in surprise. 

“Goodnight,” she says, the word so velvety it’s basically liquid sex. Which is pretty fucking cruel.

“Goodnight to you and your incredibly talented tongue,” he says, opening the door here with a dramatic gesture, and Gerri laughs. That tiny, girlish laugh he only gets when they’re alone.

He doesn’t watch her walk down the stairs, doesn’t have any more torture in him. Will settle for a cold shower and maybe a sleeping pill, anything but thinking about the way she swore against his mouth, grinding down on his lap. 

_You have a delightfully filthy mouth_ , he texts her after he turns out the lamp in his bedroom. _Sleep well._

. . . 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> May he die in prison and every racist, bigoted xenophobe who supported him get a lifelong case of incurable hemorrhoids... 
> 
> (Pops champagne bottle)


	8. Chapter 8

He finds Gerri’s cardigan on the couch in the morning, feels a sudden rush of panic like he’s just been caught at something. But there’s no one in the house, Isla isn’t even home, and it’s only a sweater - just a cardigan belonging to a colleague who frequently stops by the house.

He goes to hang it on the rack in the foyer, but then he drapes it on a knob, the soft pink fabric hanging beside Isla’s purple raincoat coat, and he yanks it back down. Thinks Lydia or maybe someone else will notice it straight away - might as well hire a skywriter to announce he’s having inappropriate non-sex with the company lawyer. 

Isla’s dragging and grumpy when he picks her up, obviously stayed up too late, probably giggling with Emily, and he lets her try some of his iced coffee after she begs and begs.

“I told you,” he says when she scrunches up her face. Grace used to drink those stupid frappuccino things, would let Isla steals sips, she still expects all coffee to taste like straight sugar, a pile of whip cream on top. 

Kendall hasn’t arrived by the time they get to Shiv’s, no matter that they’re late, and Isla heads straight for Mondale, busting the dog out of his sad little prison over Wambsgans’ repeated complaints.

“Why get a dog if you’re just gonna put him in fucking pen?” Roman asks Shiv, not for the first time. 

He always thinks about getting Isla a dog, a pet to grow up with, but he’s not home enough and Isla loses interest in most things so easily. He can’t even imagine having one more body in the house he’s expected to keep alive. 

“Isla, come eat,” Shiv calls, and Isla ignores her, doesn’t even look up.

“Rabbit, wash your hands,” Roman smirks at his sister’s chagrined face. Watches his kid begrudgingly get off the floor, leaving Mondale alone, tail thumping as he looks around with his big, dumb eyes. 

“Where’s your brother?” Shiv asks.

“I have no idea where your brother is.”

“ _Your_ brother.”

“ _Your_ fucking brother.”

They’re still playfully jousting when Tom settles at the table, an uncomfortably tight smile on his face. 

“Food looks great, honey,” he says, which is just an idiotic thing to say because it’s clearly bullshit catering.

“You slave away over a stove?” Roman prods. 

“Oh yeah,” Shiv says. “A regular Martha Stewart.”

They both snicker at that, Tom looking even more uncomfortable, and Roman goes to check on Isla. Knows damn well she isn’t in there, washing her hands. 

They’re mostly through with brunch and painful chit chat when Shiv gets a work call, sequestering herself in the bedroom, Isla peeling away from the table to play with the dog again. Roman left alone with his brother-in-law, Tom smiling at him like he’s about to eat his liver with some fava beans. 

“Feeling good for DC?” Roman asks, sitting back in his chair. 

“Feeling good,” Tom nods. Nods way too long. “Feeling ready. Feeling prepared… Just really ready to take it home for the team. Go out there and make Waystar proud.”

“Well Gerri says you look solid.”

“Did she?” His voice is half an octave too high, Roman only nodding, trying to let the silence stretch. He didn't know how to stay quiet until he got married; finally learned to swallow down words rather than deal with slammed doors and scathing looks. “Well, Gerri's great.”

“The best,” Roman agrees.

“So competent and, um, strategic. And just great, really.”

“Yep.”

“The thing is…” Tom begins, lowering his voice. “I’m kind of getting some conflicting advice from other parties? People who say that maybe… maybe the prep I’ve been doing isn’t quite in my interest?”

“Well I’m never in the room,” Roman hedges, “but like, Gerri’s the best, right?”

“The best,” Tom agrees again. “I mean, no argument from this guy.” 

“And her job is to protect Waystar,” Roman allows. “So that’s -I mean, that is a thing.”

“A thing,” Tom teases out. “Like a concern?”

“Well I wouldn’t use that word. . . ‘Concern’ makes it sound like a bad thing. But something I try to remember when I, personally, work with Gerri is that her job is to protect the company and the CEO, not necessarily me.”

“Yeahhh,” Tom says, voice cracking. “That’s a - that’s a _thing_.”

“I mean obviously, as an executive of the company, she usually needs to protect me. But if ever those two things were ever at odds…”

“She might give you bad advice?”

“I’m sure it’s fine,” Roman smiles. “Really, it’s nothing.” But Tom looks decidedly sick now, twitchy and panicked when he goes to let Kendall in after he shows up late. 

“Yo,” Ken says. Looks like shit, even with his sunglasses on.

“Yo,” Roman mimics. Keeps Isla occupied with Mondale until it’s time to leave, doesn’t want her hanging around Ken while he’s still high.

“Seriously?” Shiv demands when she comes out.

“What?” Ken asks, a strawberry in his hand. Focusing way too hard on getting it to his mouth.

Roman’s perfectly happy to let Shiv be the one to kick Ken’s ass today, but he doesn’t want his kid hearing it.

“We’re gonna head out,” he tells Shiv. Kisses her on the cheek. “Tom says you guys want to come to Isla’s next recital, so I’ll keep you posted.”

“Great,” Shiv says, clearly full of shit. Hugs Isla before Roman hustles her out the door, the yelling starting as soon as they hit the hall. 

Isla can’t keep her eyes open when they get home but he knows she’ll fight a nap. Suggests some TV in his room, Isla stretched out in the middle of the bed after they get settled, her eyes drooping after a few minutes of SpongeBob. 

She’s asleep, her little elbow digging into his ribs, when the cell on his nightstand buzzes.

_How was brunch?_

They text all the time at work, and they often chat at night, but it feels strange, a little surreal, to get a text from Gerri midday on a Sunday, sunshine streaming through his window.

 _We solved world peace_ , he texts back because he’s too tired to give her a blow-by-blow. Doesn’t want to think about his shitty family when he’s dozy and full of carbs, his kid snuffling softly beside him. 

Isla’s hair is in her face a little, her forehead scrunched up like she’s puzzling something out in her sleep, and she looks so fucking adorable that he snaps a picture with the burner phone’s shitty camera. Sends it off to Gerri before he can think better of it. 

_Clearly plotting world domination_ , she responds. A throwaway joke, but it still makes him smile. 

_That’ll make extra work for you since she’d want you as her regent._

There’s a lull in the conversation, no doubt Gerri doing whatever she does at home on Sunday, and he wonders here what her place looks like. He guesses neutrals, lots of beiges and whites, but then she seems to favor pastels in her non-work clothes, pinks and light blues, so maybe the preference carries over.

 _My calendar could be freed up for a little domination_ , she texts half an hour later.

It’s tempting to make a dirty joke, riff on the idea of her dominating things, but it’s broad daylight and his kid is next to him, so no. No, he won’t. 

_What are you doing?_

_Preparing_ , she replies, and then, _How were Tom and Ken?_

_Ken came in late, halfway high. Definitely isn't spending the day preparing, unlike a certain sexy lawyer._

_And Tom?_

He shouldn’t be annoyed that she ignored the ‘sexy’ part, it was lame anyway, but she did and he is. Slowly pecks out a long message with his thumb, assuring her that Tom will eat up time, maybe piss his pants on live TV.

 _Why on earth did your sister pick him, of all the available men._ There’s no question mark at the end so he thinks she means that rhetorically, but it’s hard to tell.

 _Even Roy’s get lonely_ , he replies. But he cringes as soon as he sends it, doesn’t wait for the next text. Puts the phone away in his nightstand, right next to her cardigan.

. . .

“We’re going to watch it in the conference room,” Karolina says, head poked into his office. “You want to join us?”

Roman shakes his head, doesn’t trust himself to speak. He’s been nauseous all morning, had his assistant take Isla to school because he was too busy not to throwing up.

“Conference room?” Frank asks a few minutes later, munching on a bag of chips, and Roman waves him away. Doesn’t want to talk to anyone and certainly doesn’t want to smell food.

Shit, he thinks he might really throw up now.

 _Good luck,_ he texts Gerri. Can’t think of anything better to say that isn’t lame, or awkward, or weirdly emotional because it’s a Senate hearing, not a fucking firing squad. 

But yeah, he’s definitely about to throw up.

 _Gerri looks really pretty_ , Tabitha texts him later, while he’s busy pacing. He isn’t watching the hearing, doesn’t want to see it, but now he wonders what Gerri’s wearing to make Tabs say that. He debates checking, his thumb hovering over PGM’s webpage, a link to the live feed running across the scrolling banner.

He compromises with himself, watching it on mute. Gerri looking so stoic and professional as she stares down her glasses, glancing occasionally at her notes, Wambsgans obviously flailing beside her, eating up all the long, painful minutes. 

_I can’t believe you had his dick in your mouth,_ he texts Tabitha, just for something to do.

_Better than being a born again virgin._

That’s rude and fucking uncalled for, but he doesn’t send anything back. Just unmutes the feed’s audio and listens to Tom shitting out of his mouth. Watches Gerri dodging every sling and arrow, a ninja clad in a flattering as fuck black sweater and a string of pearls that probably came over on the Mayflower.

He turns up in the conference room once he decides he isn’t going to empty his stomach contents onto the floor. Steals half a sandwich off Frank’s plate because the dude has no business eating full fat pastrami. 

“Hey,” Frank complains around the deli pickle in his mouth.

“Sh,” Karolina hisses, eyes trained on her phone as she listens to the TV, a gaggle of PR minions scattered about.

Roman doesn’t know about the document destruction, wonders who ordered it. Gerri’s too smart and Frank would never trust something like that to Wambsgans, so maybe Bill? Maybe even Ken, but he doesn’t know how to compute all the angles of that last possibility, would need to talk to Gerri first.

Shiv calls him and he sends it to voicemail, sees a text come in from her a few seconds later.

_Call me right now._

He won’t yet, not until the Senate recesses for a break. Probably another hour.

“Greetings,” he says to Shiv, back in his office.

“What _the_ _fuck_ ,” she hisses. 

“That would be our question as well,” he says, aiming for agitated sounding. “We literally prepped the crash test dummy you married for six weeks straight, and still he pissed all over the Senate floor. Stellar showing. Truly fucking phenomenal. Real credit to the family.”

“He says he got bad advice.”

“Uh, fuck you,” he says. “That was not what anyone in Legal told him to do. I’ve seen Gerri’s notes, Siobhan.”

“Not Gerri,” she defends. 

“Well, then who? If not the lawyer we pay six million dollars a year, specifically to avoid the spectacle of our executives swallowing their own jizz on live TV, then who? Whose advice was he taking?”

“He said he talked to you at brunch.” He can hear he’s on speaker now, probably her texting and talking while watching media coverage.

“I told him Gerri was the best,” he says. “I literally told him she was the best at prepping this shit.”

“I don’t know,” Shiv says, voice rising. “I don’t know who he was talking to, but he went in there thinking Gerri’s job was to dump his body in a river.”

“Maybe it was the same little birdy who told him to destroy documents.”

“Fuck you and we’re not talking about that,” Shiv snaps, and then she hangs up.

That’s about as hysterical as Shiv ever gets, but he thinks that means they’re in the clear. Her ire is bound to land on Kendall and settle there, even more so if he talks about jettisoning Wambsgans for the sake of optics.

 _Shiv’s probably going to call you_ , he warns Gerri. Sends the message to her work phone because he realizes now that the other one is probably locked up in her hotel room, maybe even back in New York, lurking in a drawer in her house. 

She sends him a thumb’s up and nothing else, is probably busy wiping Ken’s mouth before she shoves him out onto the Senate floor.

Ken sounds shaky at first, a little bit off his game, but he scores a point off of Gil Eavis, so Roman thinks this could go either way.

“Did he not shave this morning?” Karolina puzzles, Roman back in the conference room now. 

She’s right, Ken has a weird five o’clock shadow thing happening, looks like he should be driving around in a windowless van, offering free candy and puppies to neighborhood children.

“Probably did it last night,” Roman guesses. It’s what he did sometimes, back when he was still partying and had a meeting, didn’t know how functional he’d be in the morning. Because clearly handling a razor after a bottle of scotch is a better idea than doing so hungover. 

Christ, he’s so glad he had Isla, stopped being such a colossal waste of space.

“Great,” Karolina sighs, fingers flying over her phone. “That’s just great.”

Roman pulls up Twitter and yeah, the stills going viral are already fucking unflattering, most of them snapped from a five-second span when Ken smirked at a question Eavis had asked. Add in the weird, predator stubble and the soundbites become far more menacing, not the kind of thing that’ll be winning them brownie points. 

_It might be time to start getting worried,_ Gerri texts him from her work phone. But he doesn’t know how to read that, definitely not at face value given the medium. 

It’s all so many layers of bullshit at this point, he just wants to crawl under his desk and go to sleep.

“I have three outlets who want interviews with you tomorrow,” Karolina says. “I’ll wait for Kendall’s sign off, but we need to run through some talking points.” 

“How likable do I have to be?” Roman asks. Tries not to sound as moody and petulant as he feels.

“Really fucking likable,” Frank answers, and Karolina nods gravely, already has her phone to her ear. 

They end up working late at the house, people from Legal and PR bustling about, a few people’s kids holed up in the back, little ears tucked safely away from talking points about dead women and NDA’s.

“Can we use that?” Roman asks.

“I’ll have to check with Gerri,” Eva says, texting away on her phone, and then there’s a shriek from the back of the house that makes Roman’s blood go cold.

“Isla?” Roman says. Breaks out in a dead sprint, slamming his shin against an end table. Gets to the playroom to find Isla with flushed cheeks, hands on her hips. “What’s wrong? Where are you hurt?”

He’s already kneeling down in front of her but he can’t see anything, no obvious sign of blood, his fingers prodding through her thick hair, trying to check her scalp.

“It’s _mine_!” Isla shouts. 

“I’m sorry,” Karolina’s son says. “I was just playing.”

Roman heard that so many times when he was little - from Connor, from Kendall, sometimes even from Shiv. If he weren’t on his knees, he’d snatch the kid up, shake him to find out what the hell he did to Isla.

“Sam, what happened?” Karolina demands.

“I started playing with the dollhouse and she freaked out on me.”

“It’s mine!” Isla shrieks, basically in Roman’s ear, and he takes a good look at her now. Inhales a long, deep breath and then another as he stares at his kid’s balled up fists. Those dark, flashing eyes. 

He lets out a breath. Realizes she’s pissed off, not hurt. 

“We don’t yell like that,” he says. “You scared the - Isla, look at me.” 

“It’s _my_ dollhouse,” Isla says. “I didn’t tell him he could!” 

“We do not yell,” Roman repeats, more agitated now. “And we definitely don’t yell at people for coming near our toys.”

“I’m sorry,” Karolina says, and she sounds nervous. But she didn’t do anything and neither did her kid, and the only one who should be embarrassed here is Roman. 

“No,” he says firmly. “It’s us who should be sorry.” He stands up. “Isla, tell Sam you’re sorry.”

“I’m not!”

“ _I_ _sla,_ ” he grounds out. He starts to count to ten, but that never works, it only ever makes them both madder, Isla flat out ignoring him as he fumes. “Alright, that’s it. Bedroom.”

“I want Gerri!”

“You don’t get to see anyone,” he replies angrily, dodging the mention as best he can. Tries not to raise his voice here while he towers over her. “Say goodnight, we’re going to bed.”

She sulks all the way up the stairs, won’t even acknowledge Eva when she sees her.

“Sorry,” Eva mouths to Roman, but it’s not anyone else’s fault his kid is acting like this, apparently never learned how to share her fucking toys.

Teeth brushing is another fight, as is the no screens in bed rule, and Roman drags down the stairs half an hour later, feeling stretched out and wrong, a bargain basement suit that’s been left out to dry on a line. 

“You alright?” Karolina asks.

“Fuck no,” he breathes out. “She was brutal.” She pats his arm and he shakes his head. “Sorry she screamed at Sam. He okay?”

“A little shell shocked. It’ll wear off.”

“Hey,” Roman says to Sam when he finds him skulking in the back. Hates that he sounds as awkward as Kendall here. “Really sorry about that.”

“I should have asked,” Sam shrugs. “But she was in the other room and. . .” He doesn’t finish, only shrugs again, folding in on himself, and Roman reaches out slowly. Ruffles his shaggy hair.

“Sometimes people get mad and it’s not your fault. Don’t worry about it, okay?”

Sam doesn’t reply, only leans into him, Karolina hovering in the background now. 

“Thanks,” she says, out in the hall, but Roman only shrugs it off, doesn’t know what to say besides apologizing again. 

Kendall vetoes all of Karolina’s talking points three hours later, basically leaves them with nothing, everyone tired and angry now, remnants of a makeshift dinner spread throughout rooms, people peeling off to go home or else back to the office, Frank and Eva still holding court in the study.

“I need to go back to the office,” Karolina says, head propped on her hand as she sits on the couch in the living room. “Give me a minute, I’ll go wake up Sam.”

“Let him sleep,” Roman offers. “He’s fine in the guest room if you’re okay with that.”

He’s pretty sure her wife’s out of town again and he doesn’t think their nanny is live-in. No sense in prodding the kid awake, shuffling him back to an empty house.

“You sure?” Karolina asks. Sounds so, so tired. 

“It’s fine.”

“I’ll be back before he wakes up.”

“Just text,” he yawns. Assumes it’ll be early, enough time to get him home and ready for school, but it’s no hardship to shove cereal and juice down another mouth. 

Frank and Eva are the last to leave and Roman really misses Gerri here, the absence disproportionately painful in the quiet of the empty living room. Feels like it goes against the natural order of things now, the two of them the last ones standing on nights like this.

He thinks about calling her once he’s in bed, but it’s after midnight and she has DC wrap-up to shepherd in the morning, plus he hasn’t heard from her in over seven hours. Frank and Eva traded texts and emails with her all night, but there was nothing to him, not directly, and he doesn’t want to think about that now. Knows it’s just his mind playing tricks on him after a long, horrible day.

. . .

He wakes up to go to the bathroom sometime before dawn, all those desperation coffees he drank, and it’s the only reason he hears the phone beep.

_Naomi’s here with him._

He doesn’t turn the light on to read Gerri’s message, just squints down at the screen in the dark. Almost wants to leave it for later, when he’s caffeinated, two more hours of sleep under his belt.

 _Glad he’s being so circumspect about his bad choices_ , he replies. Closes his eyes after that, tries to go back to sleep, but then the phone rings.

“Did my text wake you?” she asks.

“No,” he mumbles. “Was already half awake.”

“Karolina said you had a rough night.”

“No rougher than your day.” He doesn’t think he has it in him to wade into the Kendall stuff right now, hopes he can’t get off the call quickly enough that he won’t have to. 

“I meant Isla.”

“Oh,” he says. “Yeah. . . Not a stellar showing for my family, I guess.”

“She’s eight,” Gerri says. “She didn’t commit corporate manslaughter, she threw a tantrum.”

“How many times did you watch my parents make excuses for our bullshit, let us run amok?” She hums at that, probably conceding the point, and he lets out a long breath. “You left your sweater here.”

“I’d wondered.”

“You aren’t doing the woman thing of pretending to leave stuff here so you have to come back and get it, are you?” 

It’s a joke but a bad one and he hopes she just lets it pass without comment. They aren’t dating, whatever they’re doing should probably stop, and he knows a second after he says it that it was a weird, regrettable thing to say.

“I wasn’t aware I needed a pretext to swan into your living room,” she sighs. Sounds a little annoyed, maybe just tired.

“You mean other than the corporation that’s presently on fire.” He settles deeper under the blankets. “You were great in the hearing.”

“Thank you,” she says. 

“I know that, um, I’ve complicated shit, but I did mean what I said months ago. Before Japan. You keep the trains running on time. Even when I was in Films, making shitty jokes and being a clown, I knew that.”

“Rome,” she says, sounding uncertain. “Are you okay?”

“Fine,” he lies, if only because he doesn’t know what to say that’s honest. It’s weird to say he misses her, admit that he thought about curling up with his cardigan when he fell asleep, and everything else, everything that isn’t Isla, feels empty and meaningless right now. Not even worth talking about.

“I wish you could see this hotel room,” she says, after the silence stretches a little too long, Roman about to sign off. “They’ve done some truly hideous things with regard to fabric choices.”

“As bad as Caroline’s decorating flourishes? English country meets mid-century circus?” 

“Worse,” she says, and he smiles at how bitchy she sounds now. “And the sheets are like sandpaper.”

“Need me to have some Egyptian cotton dropped off at the front desk?” he teases lightly.

“Maybe,” she says.

“Want me to be the bellboy, make your bed with my own two bumbling hands?” 

He hears an intake of breath at that, isn’t sure if it’s a good sign. They never talked about that last phone call and he doesn’t know if he’s making a mistake. He’s just so tired and everything’s fucked up, all he wants is to make her smile despite herself. That little laugh she hands him whenever he’s surprised her.

“I’m sure you’d be more competent help than anyone this establishment currently employs.” 

“I’m always happy to help you,” he says in a lilting tone. “Anything in particular you’d like a hand with?”

“Nothing I’d trust to a bellboy,” she breezes, so cool and detached, he knows that it’s bait.

“What about a friend?” he asks, voice lower, a little gravelly. “A respectable gentleman who just wants to help you relax.” There’s the sound of movement on the other end, layers of fabric shifting, and he knows now that she’s in bed. Half expected her to be propped up in the suite’s living room, legs tucked up on some ungodly ugly sofa. “Gerri?”

“I’m here,” she says, but her voice is softer, quieter.

“I could have the most expensive silk sheets in the world messengered over and you’d still be the softest thing in the bed.” He hears her scoff at that, a huff of breath. Can picture the face she’s making. “Shame to let all that softness go to waste.”

“I believe you’ve noted before that you’re very anti-waste,” she says. The words are dry but he remembers that night and the way she panted against his door, his mouth on her neck. Feels his face get hot, fingers bunching in the blankets.

“Felt fucking wrong that I worked all night and didn’t even get to kiss you at the end. Think I deserve a little compensation.”

“Roman.” The word is sharp, something adjacent to a gasp. Then only the sound of her breathing until she asks, “What is it you want?”

“I want you to relax. I want to help you relax.”

“How very selfless,” she says. That dark, thorny tone that feels like she’s grabbing him by the throat.

“No,” he admits, breathing a little uneven. “Fucking greedy. I want to hear you.”

“I’m not…” She trails off, and his mind rushes to supply the rest of the sentence. _Interested_. _Comfortable_. _Ready._ “I’m not very fast at relaxing. . . You might find it boring.”

“There isn’t a thing about you that’s boring,” he says. “Certainly nothing boring about the way you looked today in that sweater. How it hugged your body.”

“It was a plain black sweater,” she says, something light in her voice.

“You don’t understand,” he urges, closing his eyes. “Nothing’s plain when it’s on you. Even your pearls make my fucking palms itch. Impossible to sit through meetings without thinking about sucking them into my mouth.”

“You want to suck on my pearls?” Her tone is incredulous but the words are breathy now, consonants losing some of their sharpness, and he’d kill to know if her cheeks are flushed, see how she wears her hair to bed.

“I want to suck on anything you’ll let me get my mouth on,” he says, and it feels like a confession, no matter that he hasn’t let himself picture it before. Her topless and in his lap, all that pale skin for his tongue to trace, find out exactly how she likes to be touched.

“Fuck.”

“I’d love to,” he presses on. “But this is all I get. Hoarding your sweater in my nightstand like some kind of pervert. Thinking about you when I’m in the shower. Days on end of waiting for five minutes of kissing you on a couch, or in a car, when I’m fucking dying to know what you taste like everywhere else.”

“Oh…”

“Would you let me have that?” he asks suddenly, and he hears a soft groan here. “Would you let the most bothersome Roy drop to his knees for you?”

“I’m not sure you’re capable of that level of concentration,” she replies. Hardly convincing when the words are practically panted out, and yet it makes something dark and warm coil deep in his belly. His dick hard, his hand nowhere near it. 

“You’d be surprised,” he says, an edge to the words now. “Stupid little Roman, couldn’t be trusted to put a deal together by myself, always had to be babysat - you and your sweet smelling skin and your fucking beautiful eyes.” He pauses, let’s the sound of her breathing stretch out like taffy. “How long would it take to make you come, if I finally put my smarmy mouth to use?”

“Not long,” she admits. Sounds like she’s choking on the words. 

“Not long at all,” he says, feverish now. “I’d need it too badly. Find out if your thighs as pale as I think they are, fucking run my tongue all the way up.” She’s moaning through his words now and he reaches down, palms himself through his shorts. “Shit, Gerri, I need to smell you. I need you here. Here in my bed.”

“Please,” she begs, and she sounds desperate. Voice whiny, high-pitched. “Please, I need more.”

“More,” he laughs, but then he’s palming himself again and it turns into a strangled groan. “What more do you need?” He stops touching himself when she doesn’t answer, tries to focus in on the sound. Listen intently to her breathing because he might not get this again. “What would finally be enough for you, Geraldine? If not me begging to eat you out, then what?” She gasps at that, a little moan torn from her throat right after, and he thinks he understands now, voice raspy and impatient when he says, “Do you need my deepest, darkest confessions? For me to tell you that I’d pants myself in front of the entire Senate, let the stock free fall, light my goddamn hair on fire and strip naked in front of my entire family if it meant I could feel you wet, sinking onto me?”

“ _Roman_.” Her voice is so small, like she’s floating away, but she can’t get away from him. He’d chase her down with his last breath.

“You’d feel perfect, I know it,” he says, and the words feel painful. Something torn from his chest. “Please, I just want to hear how perfect you are.”

There’s a sound he can’t describe, so soft he’s barely sure he heard it, and then the calls go quiet, Gerri completely silent, not even the sound of her breath.

He hangs up after a minute, dick in his hand, the first light of day streaking yellow and pale through his window. 

. . .

“PGM wants a few minutes,” Karolina says.

“And how many dicks did you tell them to go sit on?” She glares at him for that and he abruptly feels guilty. Knows she wouldn’t be bringing it up if there weren't a good reason. “Alright, what does that look like?”

“Five to seven preapproved questions. A détente with ATN that’ll last all of a week.” Her voice is flat and he can see the dark skin under her eyes, Roman moving to pour her some coffee.

“Give me a script and tell me when to show up,” he says. Tries to sound accommodating, no matter that anything related to Pierce makes him twitchy now. 

“It won’t be softballs, but we could use the goodwill. I’ll ask Gerri to go with you.”

He thinks he could get down on his knees, give head to every executive at PGM, and all they’d get back is an annoyingly backhanded brand of contempt. But it’s only a few minutes of pulling down his pants, so if it makes Cyd and Karolina’s lives easier, he’ll suffer through. 

She leaves after that, has to shadow Ken around all afternoon while he does a media blitz, trying to make up the ground he lost them two days ago.

He’s supposed to be in with Gerri in a minute and that makes him twitchy, too. He’s pretty sure she’s been dodging him since she got back yesterday, hasn’t answered any of his texts since that phone call the other night.

He doesn’t think she was just humoring him, he can’t imagine her humoring anyone in that way, and it always feels mutual when they’re alone, her mouth pressed solidly against his. But he’s still her boss and all he could think about over breakfast this morning with Isla is why they should stop, how he always says they should stop, right before he drags them even further over the line. 

Gerri was right. He is a weak-willed little hypocrite. 

“Hey,” he says as he ducks into her office, Gerri on the phone. Holds up a finger signaling for him to wait, Eva appearing in the doorway.

“I’m at work, obviously,” Gerri says, sounding annoyed. And then, “I’m not having this conversation right now. We’ll discuss this tonight.” That doesn’t sound like a work call, he’d probably shrivel up in a ball if she spoke to him like that, and he feels uncomfortable now, doesn’t know what he’s witnessing. 

“Shareholder vote was pushed back another six weeks,” Eva announces once Gerri’s free. “How do you want us to split up the calls?”

Gerri mostly talks to Eva, barely looks him in the eye, and after half an hour of being ignored while he sits six feet away, he stretches his neck, legs fidgeting.

“I’ve got a call in five minutes,” he lies. “Send the rest to my assistant and I’ll tackle it when I’m done.”

“So PGM?” Eva asks as he stands up.

“Yeah,” he smiles, papering over his nerves. “Just a friendly chat with people who hate everything we represent and all my blood relations. What could possibly go wrong?”

“It’ll be fine,” Eva assures, which is normally Gerri’s line. But she’s ignoring them both now, already scanning through something on her desk.

It’s tempting to say goodbye on his way out, decides to bypass the kick in the dick of being ignored yet again. Doesn’t feel quite that fucking masochistic right now.

“You going over to Pierce?” Frank asks him later. 

“Yep,” Roman says. He’s in the middle of fighting with a tie Karolina had dropped off for him, thinks maybe he’ll just skip wearing it.

“That new?” 

“I don’t even get to dress myself anymore,” he complains, though he doesn’t mind the jacket. Thinks the pants actually make his ass look good, but he can’t even ask anyone because ‘anyone’ would have to be Gerri and that’s clearly a no-go. 

“For Christ’s sake,” Frank says when Roman flubs the knot again. “Didn’t your father teach you anything.”

“Only the shit I had to unlearn at therapy,” he grouses, Frank already fixing his fucked up tie. “Hey, not so fucking tight.”

“Just stick to the script,” Frank tells him. “Don’t let anyone chat you up before or after. Get in, smile congenially, then get the fuck out.”

“Fine,” Roman says. He can think of three different jokes to make, two of them pretty filthy, but he doesn’t need another lecture. Knows better than to think PGM just called them out of the blue for a friendly little fondle.

“It’ll be fine,” Frank promises. “Gerri going?”

“Eva,” he says. He got an email about that change ten minutes ago, doesn’t want to think about it. 

“Better that way,” Frank smirks. “Gerri’s in a mood today.” 

He could pump Frank for information, tell him about the phone call he overheard, but he doesn’t know how to couch it in a way that doesn’t sound creepy or leading. Just wants to get on with the ritual bloodletting over at Pierce and then get home to Isla.

It’s easier than he expected, everyone at PGM is unfailingly polite, but that pings his radar in a worrisome way. Doesn’t let himself get drawn into conversation other than some chatter about the Yankees game while he’s still in hair and makeup, Eva rolling her eyes in the mirror when he needles her.

Pierce’s CEO, that Jarrell woman, swans by when he’s on his way out. An engineered run-in she plays off so smoothly, he’s a little bit impressed.

“Pleasure to meet you,” she says after the initial introduction, and there’s something about the way she stands, head tilted, that he clocks as semi- flirty. 

She isn’t his type, but he would imagine this usually works quite well for her.

“All mine,” he says, playing it up. “See you around.”

He texts Frank about it. Doesn’t text Gerri. PGM runs the interview that night and it’s clear they gave him a flattering edit, cut away the one or two times he pulled a face. 

He gets a teasing, tongue-in-cheek email from Cyd that Gerri and Karolina are both copied on, is copied on an email from Gerri to Ken, telling them it played well with a few shareholders. 

_You looked really solid_ , Kendall texts him, and Roman wishes he could take the words at face value. Remembers the first few weeks after their dad was ousted and so many things felt possible, even if scary - daunting and hard.

 _Dinner at the house?_ Roman replies. Knows his brother will probably turn him down, avoid being alone with him. Too many secrets to keep now.

 _Rain check_ , Ken says, and Roman slumps down in the back of the car. Thinks about the way Grace would absently drum her fingers against the window sometimes, the soft click of her nails lulling Isla to sleep.

. . .

“You’re joking,” Tabitha says. “This is a joke?”

“I’m really sorry,” Roman says. “But it was only Frank and I swear I’ll go back, tell him it was a lie.”

“Then he’ll just ask questions,” Tabitha sighs. Looks at him over her dining table. “You really haven’t slept with her?”

“Sure haven’t,” he says. Drags his fork across his empty plate, the noise making her cringe. 

“Are we talking oral but no penetration, or -“

“No sex,” he interrupts, voice rising. “Like, zero physical contact beyond making out, thank you very much, Kenneth Starr.” 

“Poor baby,” Tabitha coos. Isn’t even mocking him. 

“Shit, I need to go get Isla.” 

He puts the takeout containers in the trash, Tabitha watching him in dismay, but her place is always a wreck and he doesn’t know how she can possibly live like this. It’s like she undoes everything her cleaning service puts right, the second they’re out the door.

“You can leave that,” she says.

“I really can’t,” he says, still finishing up. 

He kisses her on the cheek and then moves to leave, gets dragged back by her hand on his arm.

“I’ll be your cover. Yours and the hot professor’s.”

“No,” he says and means it. “That’s a fucked up thing to ask of you and anyway it doesn’t matter. She’s avoiding me.” He tries to pull away and she won’t let him. “And why is your hand so goddamn strong? You’re going to leave a bruise. Ruin my model-like physique.”

“Please go back to therapy,” Tabitha says. “If not for the sexual repression, then for the deeply deluded self-concept.”

“You’re a bitch and your apartment smells like my dead grandmother’s,” he smiles. “Call you tomorrow.”

Isla apparently qualified for the junior swim team, goes on and on about the first competition in the car, but she’s got dance in an hour and Roman barely has time to go home and get her changed, shovel some calories down her that won’t come right back up at ballet.

Frank and Gerri are supposed to come over later, talk about where to go on the proxy battle and the growing Naomi problem, but Roman’s thinking about moving the meeting to Frank’s place, maybe get his assistant to stay with Isla since Lydia’s out of town. 

It’s been almost a week of walking into rooms only to see Gerri disappear around corners, always a few seats away from him in his meetings, and he knows it isn’t some kind of play because she hasn’t called or texted him once. It’s like being ghosted, only way fucking worse because he has to see her at work and hear people say her name ten times an hour. Read long memos with her name on the bottom, respond to her emails detailing convoluted legal proceedings he only halfway understands.

He wants to apologize, he wants to scream, he wants do something epically stupid like show up at her place on the pretext of returning her sweater. But mostly he wants to grab her by the arms and ask her why - why would she say she needed more, when clearly wanted less.

 _Dinner?_ Frank asks, and Roman wonders if he’s with Gerri. Whether they’re at the Carlyle, having a drink or shooting the shit, if his turning up there would cause Gerri to pull up stakes, cite a sudden, pressing errand.

 _Had an early dinner with Tabitha_ , he replies. Feels grateful he doesn’t have to hide behind a lie.

“Slow down,” he begs Isla as she hoovers down her sandwich the moment she sits at the dining table. “You’ll have crackers and apple slices for the break, okay?”

He drops Isla off at dance, Emily’s parents volunteering to take her home, and he gets back to the house in time to see Gerri’s car pull up. 

He has his driver idle on the street so doesn’t have to get out, be ignored in his own house until Frank turns up.

“Everything okay?” Frank asks when he gets out, was apparently in Gerri’s car the whole time.

“Just talking with Isla’s grandparents,” Roman shrugs. It isn’t true but he did talk with them earlier, reaches for the lowest hanging lie.

“Are they still coming out next weekend?” Gerri asks, right behind him on the stairs. It’s the first non-work related thing she’s said to him in days and he can’t look at her when he answers. Just focuses on getting his key in the door and then disarming the alarm.

“No, but that means I’m losing my kid to California later this month.” The alarm beeps off and he kicks off his shoes, just had the floors touched up this week. “Lydia’s gone, sorry for all the toys.”

Frank helps himself to a beer and some cookies, Roman declining the scotch Gerri pours him. Leaves it sitting on the coffee table untouched.

“So, my brother’s girlfriend,” Roman prompts.

“Is telling people Waystar might buy Pierce,” Frank supplies.

“That’s a joke, right?” Roman sits up. “Like a coked out joke the two of them came up with to make themselves giggle? Our family doing literally _all_ the country’s news?”

“Nan would never get near us before,” Gerri says here, and Frank shoots her a frustrated look, obviously some kind of argument that Roman’s missed out on. “Logan already tried. Tried and failed. And that was before two years of disastrous press.”

“There are cousins who’d like a buyout,” Frank says. “They always existed, but there are more of them now and Naomi has a lot of sway. Plus there’s Rhea.”

“You think she’s part of this?” Roman asks.

“This would be dead in the water if she weren’t and the woman likes power,” Frank warns, Gerri not looking like she disagrees here. “I think she’d be on board with whatever Kendall and Naomi are planning if she thinks she’ll have a seat at the table.”

“So Gerri, but evil,” Roman sighs. Ignores how Gerri frowns at that. “Fucking great.”

“Do you have to pick up Isla?” Gerri asks.

“No,” Roman scrubs his hand over his face. “She’s getting dropped off.”

Isla comes home while they’re still talking about the proxy shit, basically glues herself to Gerri’s side, Roman trying to coax her away with the promise of food.

“The apples were brown on the edges,” Isla complains, and Gerri smiles. Runs her hand through Isla’s sweaty hair.

“Come on,” he says gently. “Come eat something before you have to clean up. I promise, no mushy apples.”

Frank follows them into the kitchen, helping himself to another beer, Gerri floating in after a minute, then ducking out to take a call.

“Can Gerri do bedtime?” Isla asks, and Frank smiles. Never seems to mind coming in second place.

“I had to spend half the day without you,” Roman replies, faking a pretty good pout. “You should let me do bedtime tonight.”

“Both of you,” Isla begs, but there’s no way that’s going to happen. He just has to figure out his next move.

“Sorry,” Gerri says when she reappears, and that’s unlike her. Not something she ever does when she’s taking a work call.

“Claire find an apartment yet?” Frank asks, and Roman can’t remember if that’s the daughter Shiv hated, or the one who made Connor cry, that time in Switzerland. 

“Not yet,” Gerri says. Her voice loses its sourness when she asks, “Am I doing bedtime tonight?”

She has to see the face he pulls at that because he’s standing behind Frank and Isla, directly in her line of sight, but she doesn’t bat an eye.

“Matilda!” Isla yells, Frank tutting about her volume while Roman puts Isla’s plate in the sink.

“You should take Frank, too,” Roman says to Isla, Gerri waiting for them on the stairs. “He does great voices.”

“It’s really just the one voice,” Frank says, but he’s smiling again, clearly game.

Gerri comes back down the stairs a few minutes after she goes up, Roman back in the study, sitting on the floor and scrolling through the fifty emails he’s gotten in the last half an hour. 

“That was a fast chapter,” he says, after she keeps staring at him.

“You’re upset,” she says, arms folded over her chest.

“I don’t want to talk about this,” he says immediately, no matter that all he’s wanted for days is for her to talk to him, stop scampering away like he has the fucking plague. 

“My daughter’s been in town,” she says, and he thinks she’s trying to explain. But he doesn’t know what there even is to explain, doesn’t really know what’s even going on between them anymore. “She’s staying with me while she shops for a new apartment.”

“Okay,” he says. 

“Roman,” she sighs. “It wasn’t you. It’s just been a weird week.”

“Did text messages cease to exist during your weird week?” They hear the heavy, stilted shuffle of Frank’s elephant feet before she can get out an answer. 

“Apparently my reading voice isn’t as good as Gerri’s,” Frank announces. Doesn’t seem annoyed.

“Welcome to my life,” Roman says dramatically. Flops back, lying flat. 

“Well I still have two calls to make,” Frank says. “And Gerri no doubt wants to work on you. Convince you I’m entirely wrong about the Pierce stuff.”

“No one’s working on anyone” Roman announces, before Gerri can snipe back. “Thank you for reading to my daughter, but you can both go now. Think about how fucked we are already without also pecking each other to death.”

“Sorry,” Frank says, and Roman misses whatever expression Gerri makes here because he’s too busy trying to get off the floor, ankle popping as he stands.

He walks them both to the door, no chance for Gerri to linger. Thinks he might go to bed early for once. Sleep like the dead until Isla prods him awake with her pointy little fingers.

“Shit,” Gerri mutters at the door, hand on her ear.

“What’s wrong?” Frank asks, stopping short so he doesn’t walk into her.

“My earring fell off.”

“Lucia will find it,” Roman promises. Tries to hurry them both along. “I’ll leave her a note.”

“Baird bought me these,” she sighs, sounding pained now, and Roman takes a breath. Spins around on his heel.

“You still had it on in the study,” he calls, already searching in the hallway. Hears the door close, probably Frank ditching them because he’s useless with shit like this, can’t even find his own glasses when they’re sitting on top of his fucking head. 

“Did I?” she asks. 

“Yeah,” he says, already caught up in the project, searching the floor from wall to wall. “You were talking to me and still had it on, so it has to be -”

She pushes him into the wall when she kisses him, his elbow banging against something, and her mouth is so insistent, her hands already everywhere, he feels disoriented, too dumbstruck to do more than kiss her back.

“I’m sorry,” she says against his mouth. “You’re always so honest and I don’t know how -” She kisses him again hard, a hand on chest that slides down to his stomach, then further down to his fly. “I thought about you all week.” 

“We can’t,” he says, forcing space between them. “I can’t do this.” He feels crazy, not sure what’s going on, Gerri looking distraught here, like the distance between them upsets her, no matter that she’s refused to look at him since she got back on Tuesday. “You didn’t even text. We did that and you just - you fucking ignored me.”

“I had to,” she says, and she doesn’t even sound sorry. Presses herself against him, her face going soft. “I look at you and I get distracted. I can’t function that way, Roman. Not at work.”

“Then we should stop,” he says, but his hands are in her hair now and her body feels so warm, and they’ve never been pressed together quite like this, her breasts pushing into his chest, pelvis and hips alligned.

He kisses her all the way into the study, bumping into furniture as they go, her blouse discarded on the floor, her back pressed into the door the moment Roman closes it behind them, his teeth and tongue on the white lace of her bra.

“Please,” she says when he sucks on her through the material, her fingers threaded in his hair. “Rome, _please_.” He used to think he was the greedy one, but now he isn’t sure. Feels her buck against his pelvis when his tongue fixates on the texture of a nipple, traces it over and over through scalloped lace, his hands gripping her hips. 

She manages to hike her skirt up just enough and he wedges his hand against the satin of her panties, hears her groan so fucking loudly when he makes contact, his fingers sliding against the fabric.

“Shit,” she gasps. And then, “Oh.”

“Fuck,” he says, head still bent, laving at her chest as she arches into his mouth. Breathy little moans that are driving him crazy now. “Fuck, you feel so good.”

Her hands are scrabbling at his back, her hips rocking against his hand as he cups her, sliding his hand back and forth, his thumb stretching upward. 

“Inside me,” she urges, but he doesn’t move, doesn’t change what he’s doing. Pins one of her hands above her head when she goes to push down the satin still separating her from his fingers.

“For once, just make do with what you’re given,” he grits against her ear. Covers her mouth with his, her eyes flying open. Surprised looking. Wild.

She moans into his mouth, does that thing with her tongue that he thinks about when he touches himself, her nails digging into his fingers, his other hand moving steadily against her.

“Would you have let me do this in Japan?” he rasps, pulled back to catch his breath. Thinks about all those days wasted in relative seclusion, feels her shake her head as he kisses her again. But the fabric under his fingers is soaked through, gossamer thin now, and when he grazes her with a knuckle, her whole body shudders. “Gerri, I think you’re lying. . .”

He’s never been an expert at the mechanics of sex, Grace always complained that he either took to long at things or didn’t wait long enough. He’s only operating on instinct now, touching her in ways that make her moan, spinning out the words he thinks she wants; the words they both need as he draws it out.

Her thighs are shaking and the hand he has above her head has gone numb, fingers tingling unpleasantly where they’re laced in hers. Finally digs his thumb into the spot he’s been grazing over and over, feels her whole body seize up, her forehead pressed to his.

He drops her hand, feels it immediately fall to his shoulder, her body slumped against him.

“Come over for brunch tomorrow,” he whispers after a minute, both of them quiet, sweat cooling on his forehead. Presses soft, closed mouth kisses into her shoulder. 

“Okay,” she says in the tiniest, softest voice. Gives a contented sigh as his mouth moves over her collarbone and then up, over her neck. Her hand threading through his hair when his lips move up to that one spot below her ear, mouthing at it gently as she melts further into him, his body cradling her weight.

She opens her eyes a few minutes later, tentatively presses a hand to the front of his pants, nails grazing the zipper, and he shakes his head. Kisses away the frown that forms when he tugs her hand away.

“Fuck, your earring,” he startles when she’s reaching for her blouse. He spins around, resumes searching the floor as she starts putting herself back together.

“Don’t worry about it,” she dismisses.

“But Baird gave it to you,” he says. Finds it surprisingly non-weird to mention her dead husband right after she came against his hand. 

“It’s behind the chair, where I threw it.”

He wheels around to stare at her, her cheeks still flushed pink as she walks over, plucking the pearl stud right off the floor. 

She fixes it to her ear with an enigmatic smile, his hand instinctively reaching out to cup her hip. 

“Crisis averted,” she says. That calm, detached tone she uses in the office, her blouse only halfway buttoned, her chest splotched red from his mouth.

. . .

  
  



	9. Chapter 9

Kendall sends him an email announcing that he’s going to Hong Kong, nominally for a meeting with some VP’s. But the CEO never travels for that kind of thing, the king always makes the servants come to him, and Roman doubts Ken’s looking to buck that particular tradition. 

“Who’s going with him?” he asks Frank, and Frank shakes his head. Apparently doesn’t know much. 

“Not Gerri and none of Karolina’s staff, so beats me.” 

“Great,” Romans drawls, spinning around in his office chair. “Mystery death trip to Asia.” 

He’ll get in contact with Jess later, give her a head’s up and see if she can chase down any information. Has two back-to-back meetings after that and then some phone calls to make about the proxy battle, which has essentially turned into the world's slowest, most boring reenactment of the Vietnam war. 

“I need you to go to the New York Press Club dinner on Friday,” Karolina tells him when she turns up in his office later. 

“That awards dinner when everyone talks about what hacks we are? Fuck no. Make someone else go.” 

“We need a member of the family to show their face,” she pushes back. “Your sister’s out of town and Ken said he’d go, but now he’ll be gone.” He stares at her blankly and she looks back at him like she’s a foreign language teacher and he’s just failed to conjugate the most basic of fucking verbs. “Gerri and a few other people are already going, but it needs to be you.” 

“Fine,” he sighs. Lydia’s still out of town and his part-time nanny is getting on his last fucking nerve. (How hard is it to remember the foods Isla doesn’t like? Not that fucking hard.) But maybe he’ll make his assistant or someone else do it, anyone but a stranger Isla will watch warily, not let tuck her into bed. 

“Drinks on Saturday?” she asks, a hopeful smile here. 

“If Lydia’s back, then yes,” he says absently. “Will give me a break from my kid’s five million fucking activities.” 

“We dropped out of soccer,” she admits. Doesn’t sound at all sad about it. 

_What are you doing Friday?_ he texts Tabitha. Attaches a link to the bullshit press dinner, feeling bad about the short notice, but there’s no shortage of media types who need consultants to help them pull their heads out of their asses. Maybe she can pick up a new client or two. 

_You hate stuff like that,_ she replies, and she’s not fucking wrong. He starts typing out a reply when he realizes he’s late to a huddle with Gerri, texting away as he walks. 

“Hey,” Gerri says when he turns up, Roman’s eyes still on his phone. 

He saw her just yesterday but that was in his kitchen, Isla floating about as he called in a order for brunch, Gerri watching him with a soft expression as he made Isla fresh orange juice with the juicer that Shiv got him four years ago (and that took him almost as long to figure out how to fucking use). 

“Hey,” he says back. Tries not to be weird, stare at her mouth, no matter that he didn’t get to kiss her yesterday, Isla glued to her side the whole time. “I take it you have an update on the many people who are suing us.” 

It’s the usual laundry list of shit, couched in a few vague statements because they’re in the office and they always have to be careful, ten different shrouds of obscurity to hide the one shining truth that Ken is a useless fucking asshole. But then he’s all caught up, just sitting in the chair across from her desk, Gerri staring at him with unblinking eyes. 

“Karolina said you’re going to the Press Club dinner now?” 

“Indeed,” he says, chin propped on his hands. “Heard you got roped into it too.” 

“Well I have to babysit the COO,” she smirks. Bats her lashes behind her glasses. “Perhaps you haven’t heard, but he’s all mouth and hair. Very little filter.” 

“I have in fact heard that,” he says, getting up now. Knows she has a million things to do, doesn’t want to be an asshole, take up her incredibly limited time with more of his flirting. “You should wear something white. Or cream. You look amazing in cream.” 

The days run together the way they so often do now, meetings and phone calls, and then rushing Isla’s to things, figuring out logistics with Lydia gone. He gets Frank to agree to stay with Isla during the dinner on Friday, doesn’t even have to guilt him, Frank just thrilled as hell that he doesn’t have to go, listen to boring ass speeches from people who hate them. 

“Good luck smiling while they chop your dick off over and over,” Frank says. Pats him on the shoulder and then fucks off, out of the conference room they’re standing in. 

_On a scale of 1-10_ , he texts Gerri, _how painful is this press dinner going to be?_

 _I’d say a 4_. After a minute she adds, _But then again, I don’t carry a despised last name and I’ve been through childbirth twice, so. . ._

He’s pretty sure she’s fucking with him but he can’t tell over text, doesn’t have time to think about it because he has to haul ass across town to pick Isla up from dance. 

“Pizza,” Isla insists as he watches her tear into the peanut butter crackers he brought her, crumbs falling all over the car.

“We have food at home,” he says, his mind pulling up short here. Doesn’t know when he turned into exactly the kind of person he fully fucking loathed when he was a kid. 

She doesn’t break out into a fit after that, the universe apparently granting him a small reprieve, but bedtime continues to be a battle, a phase she’s apparently committing to, and he grinds his teeth through the half hour of bickering. 

“Would you like an eight-year-old?” he asks Gerri when she calls late that night. “She’s free to a good home.” 

“I admit the offer is tempting,” she says, clearly amused. “But I’ll have to decline.” 

“Some friend you are.” 

“What’s she doing?” 

“She’s just a nightmare at bedtime now. Like, a little crankier during the day? But I swear to fucking God she turns into a gremlin after eight o’clock because I do not know the child I just tucked into bed. She’s spiteful and stubborn and won’t listen to anyone.” 

“Oh, so she’s turning into Shiv.” 

“Fuck you,” he laughs. Feels a little better already, putzing around his room, going through the motions of getting ready for bed even though he’s too wound up to sleep. “Is your daughter still in town?” 

“Yes, but apparently she went on a date. Even though the ink is not yet dry on her separation agreement from the last idiot.” 

“Claire’s the one who’s a writer, right?” He hears a long sigh after that, feels awkward as he snuggles down into bed, waiting for her to say something. 

“Can we talk about something else?” she asks. Sounds tired, some species of annoyance lurking in the words. 

“Sure,” he says flippantly. “How ‘bout that weather today? I mean, I didn’t spend more than thirty seconds outside of a climate controlled car or building, but it sure did look like shit.” 

“Maybe something more substantive,” she says, and he can practically hear her frown. 

“You’re very picky tonight,” he tsks. Hopes that earns him a small smile on the other end of the line. 

“I’m picky at all times." He waits her out after that, knows by now that if he fights the urge to fill the silence, she’ll do it for him. “I hate to disappoint you, but I’m wearing a black dress on Friday.” 

“You look amazing in everything, including black, and I think you’re have to work pretty fucking hard to disappoint me.” 

“You’d be surprised,” she says, the lightness from her tone gone. There’s a pause before she asks, “Are you taking Tabitha?” 

“I am,” he says. “Unless you don’t think-”

“I think that’s best,” she cuts him off. “She’s charming. Attractive. People gravitate toward her.” 

“She’s on some kind of a dating hiatus,” he says, looking up at the ceiling. He can see a cobweb his cleaning service missed in the corner and that’s going to bug the fuck out of him while he’s trying to sleep. “She says she doesn’t want to put any energy into that part of her life right now.”

“Ah, yes. The self-imposed nunnery of a dating hiatus,” she says, a lilt to her voice now. “I was on one when we -” She stops, something shuffling in the background. “I’ve been known to take them on occasion.” 

He doesn’t know what to do with that information, doesn’t ever remember seeing her with anyone besides Baird, no matter that the dude’s been dead for like six years. Still remembers Kendall calling to tell him, Roman distracted on the phone because Isla was toddling around, cutting tight corners around furniture that made him fucking nervous, always on the lookout for something that might hurt her. 

“I’m sorry I didn’t make it to Baird’s funeral,” he blurts. Doesn’t really know where that came from. 

“You didn’t miss much,” she sighs. “It got hijacked by Waystar. Logan holding court. I was sorry to see it happen again with Grace’s.” 

“It was fine,” Roman lies. 

“It wasn’t,” she huffs out a humorless laugh. “I wanted to say something to you, but then you were with Frank and it seemed rude to interrupt. We’d never been friendly, wasn’t really my place.” 

“We’re friendly now,” he says. Doesn’t want to think about Grace when Gerri’s voice is in his ear, soft and low and so familiar that it makes him ache when he’s just lying here, listening. “Thank you for coming to brunch yesterday.” 

“Sure,” she says. “Always a pleasure to watch two Roy’s fidget around a dining room table.” 

He wants to tell her here that she’ll always be welcome. That if the kissing and everything else stops tomorrow, they both decide to be more level-headed, he’d still want her in his home and at his kid’s recitals. Would happily just watch her face as she listens to Isla chirping away, showing off her dolls, Gerri's voice so soothing and warm when she reads from Isla’s favorite book, never once cracking the way his does, his throat dry after a long fucking day. 

But the moment evaporates with his indecision and soon enough Gerri’s making noises about letting him sleep, and he closes his eyes. Wishes he could just be better. Be less afraid. 

“Goodnight,” she says. 

“You looked incredibly pretty yesterday,” he says. “It was hard not to play with your hair now that it’s getting long again. Goodnight.” 

. . . 

First thing Friday, Jess tells him that there’s no meeting in Hong Kong, no matter what the VP’s office is claiming, and at this point he starts to panic because they don’t have any idea what Ken’s doing, what the next play is, Frank and Gerri as in the dark as he fucking is. 

“Fucking great,” he says to his empty office. 

Kendall took Karl, so maybe Roman could do some digging on that end, but he trusts Karl to keep quiet about as much as he’d trust a stray dog to eat a hotdog of his naked dick, so no. He’ll pass on trying to get that bastard in his corner, will just shake free some information somewhere else. 

“I don’t like this,” Gerri admits in her office. Doesn’t say what, but they both know, Roman pacing now. 

“I’ll have Frank more calls,” he says. Stops in front of a garment bag she has hanging up in the corner, his fingers playing with the zipper. 

“Leave that alone,” she orders. 

“Got a dead body in here? Maybe that dude from Vaulter you wouldn’t let me fire after he called you a bitch?” 

“As if I’m not used to being called a bitch after decades of dealing with it,” she says, swatting him away. Shooing him out of her office, his arm braced on the door he’s just opened when she adds, “Go. Go do something, far away from me.” 

“Did you hear that?” he asks Gerri’s assistant, the woman giving him the thinnest of smiles as he glides past her. 

Frank turns up at the house five minutes before Roman has to leave to grab Tabs.

“You’re fucking late,” he accuses.

“I’m not,” Frank says, Isla running to hug him, then dragging him by the hand to the back of the house.

“Don’t let her stay up,” Roman calls, but the family room TV is already blaring and he just fucking knows that Frank will roll over, let Isla stay up the minute she starts to pitch a fit. 

“Is Claire Kellman Gerri’s daughter?” Tabitha asks him in the car.

“Please tell me you didn’t fuck Gerri’s daughter,” he says immediately, still fidgeting with cufflinks because he hates this pair, they never feel right. 

“No,” Tabs says and hits him. “And she’s straight. So far as I believe in straight people, I think she’s straight. But I read her novel last year and I didn’t think about the last name until I had coffee with a friend today.”

“Huh,” he says. Doesn’t really know what to say here, certainty hasn’t read the fucking novel - didn’t even remember one of the daughters was a writer until recently. 

“I just wonder what Gerri thought about it is all. Lot of maternal alienation in that book.”

Fucking great.

“Maybe don’t ask her,” Roman says, biting as his cufflink now, trying to fix it. Tabitha watching him with open amusement, always front and center for his personal shitshow.

All the Waystar people are seated at the same table, and he scans the names, disappointed that Cyd’s isn’t among them.

“We told Cyd she didn’t have to come after what happened last year,” Gerri says from beside him, Roman jumping a little. Never quite gets used to her doing that. 

“What happened last year?” he asks, voice cracking a little on the last word. Starts fucking with his left cuff again because he still can’t get it too lay right. 

“That’s a story best left for Cyd to tell,” she replies cryptically. Reaches out to straighten the cuff that’s been bothering him for thirty minutes, Roman trying not to stare at the low cut silk of her dress, the way her diamond necklace hits her cleavage just fucking so.

“You look stunning,” he breathes out. Can’t help it. 

“You’re here with a former model,” she says. Sounds incredulous in a way he doesn’t at all buy. “And stop staring at my chest, before someone notices.”

“Well don’t adorn it with shiny things if you don’t want to attract rodents.” He pulls his arm back once she’s done with his cuff, Tabitha returning with a glass of champagne and a bored expression.

“So everyone here hates you guys,” she drawls. Slips into her seat beside him.

“Not us, just me,” Roman sighs. Doesn’t care that he sounds like a little kid, no better than Isla when she's being grumpy. 

“The rest of us only by association,” Gerri smiles. Sounds like a gold-plated bitch as she warily looks around the room. “At least the booze is always plentiful.”

“I’m already hungry,” Roman complains. “Where’s the fucking cater waiter?”

It doesn’t look like there’s any dancing at this shindig, just some pre-dinner mingling he skips out on, Gerri floating around on her own. Probably busily sliding knives between peoples ribs, none of them noticing because she’s so charming and pretty and -

“Roman Roy, a pleasure to see you.”

Tabitha paints on a smile when Rhea Jarrell saddles up, seems to know who she is without the introduction. 

“Sure,” Roman says. “Likewise, obviously. Always happy to play the latrine for the other media elite.”

“You’re being much too hard on us,” Jarrell says, and he can feel Tabitha’s arm slide around his shoulder. Fingers idly playing with the hair at his neck as she looks around, makes eye contact with someone Roman can’t see because he’s too busy squirming out of his skin.

“Hard to go easy with this chip on my shoulder and the pathetically low IQ,” he deflects. Should make more of an effort to be charming, maybe a little flirty, but that play is pretty much blown with Tabitha draped all over him and honestly, he just wants this chick out of his face.

“Rhea,” Gerri greets, and it’s kind of fun to watch her startle someone else for once, Jarrell’s smile a frozen one when she spins around. Pretends to be happy to see her. 

“A pleasure,” Rhea says. “Gerri Keller, right?”

“Kellman,” Tabitha corrects, Gerri’s fake ass smile still in place as she moves to stand beside her seat, hovering to Roman’s right.

“Kellman. Of course, I’m so sorry.”

“Probably hard to remember names when you’re too busy, counting your Pulitzers before they’re hatched,” Roman says. Punctuates it with his most insincere smile.

“And yet I always remember yours,” Jarrell replies before she moves along, Tabitha scowling at her back.

“She’s creepy,” she says.

“Did you don’t want a proper introduction?” Roman teases. “Try to get your hands on that sweet ass PGM stock?” He hears Gerri scoff at that, silk rustling beside him.

“I prefer my women warm blooded,” Tabs says. Disengages her arm from his shoulder to reach for her drink.

“Me too,” he agrees. Watches Gerri duck her head to check her phone, manicured fingers moving methodically over the screen. Pale neck exposed, hair pulled up.

The awards are long and boring, dinner mercifully uneventful. He should probably swan around and schmooze after, but he thinks the best he can do for Waystar is politely clapping, not making anymore enemies. 

“I’m going to have to borrow him,” Gerri says to Tabitha, right when Roman was thinking about making his escape. 

“Don't put too many miles on him,” Tabs says. Doesn’t even look up from her phone as Gerri stands, tugging at Roman’s collar sharply to get him in motion.

She leads him around the room, introducing him to people, most of them clearly trying to pretend that they wouldn’t rather be talking to anyone else. But Gerri carries all the conversations, doesn’t let them linger in any one place, get bogged down enough for him to shove his foot in his fucking mouth. 

“Do you think his wife ever comes during sex?” Roman whispers in Gerri’s ear, after a particularly trying conversation. Watches her cheeks go bright pink as she looks around the room, busy pretending her boss isn’t talking filth. 

“Doubtful,” she says. Dogs her nails into his arm, little crescents of pain that make him smirk as she leads him back to their table. 

“Is he all mine again?” Tabitha asks, an attractive but dumb looking dude sitting beside her.

“Yes," Gerri sniffs. "Please take him.”

“Fucking rude,” Roman huffs, Tabitha getting up without so much as a nod to the idiot who’s been chatting her up.

“Gerri looked really pretty,” Tabs says on the way out. Gives him a knowing smile.

“You always say that,” he grouses. It’s tempting to respond honestly here, but he’s been beside Gerri most of the night, smelling her perfume and watching her absently fidget with her five million bracelets. Feels worried that he’ll spill his guts out now, just vomit all of his feelings onto Tabitha’s incredibly high heels. 

“Because she always looks pretty,” she replies as their car pulls up. “And has such great boobs.”

“You’re a fucking skeeze. Just for the record.”

The house is a wreck when he gets home, Isla still downstairs. But it’s hard to be mad when Frank’s snoring away on the couch, a replay of the baseball game on, Isla stretched out with her feet in his lap, her face tucked into a throw pillow.

“Come on,” Roman says as he scoops her up. She only stirs a little, still fast asleep against his shoulder as he lugs her up the stairs. Knows the time is coming that she’ll be too big for this, the thought lodging cold and sharp, a knife pressed below his breastbone as he trudges down the hall. 

She rolls over immediately in bed, presses her face between her pillow and Mr. Bugs, and he sits on the bed for a minute, just watching her; long hair spilling over her purple pillow case, freckled face mostly hidden.

“I love you, rabbit.” 

He knows he doesn’t say enough, his own childhood bullshit biting him on the ass. But he’d rather spend everyday making her feel it - making her feel loved all the way down to her bones - than go around just saying the words, the way he and his siblings did. 

Isla mumbles in her sleep, probably a dream rather than a reply, and he levers himself off the bed. Goes to sleep without calling Gerri like he’d planned. Decides to nurse the memory of her blushing cheeks and pinned up hair, alone in his bed.

. . .

Shiv bamboozles him into a late lunch after she gets back from DC on Saturday, Isla already at swim practice. Wastes half an hour on bullshit small talk; tossed off comments about how their father is apparently spinning out more and more, no one around for him to sink his teeth into. 

“You gonna tell me what’s going on with Waystar and Pierce?” she finally asks, Roman rolling his eyes because he could have done without the prerequisite chatter. 

“Next time just ask,” he sighs. Watches her pull a bitchy face at that, her eyes shifting around the mostly empty restaurant. “And no, because I fucking don’t know and that makes me nervous. Literally everyone hates the idea.” 

“Dad tried twice for PGM twice,” Shiv says. “He’s not that stupid, right? Even high and dick deep in Naomi Pierce, he’s not that spectacularly stupid?”

“I honestly don’t know,” he repeats. Leads with the truth because it’s always been the easier weapon for him to wield, his lies too clumsy, so often off the mark. “I mean, he doesn’t tell me anything anymore, lies to my fucking face all the time. For all I know he’s about to dump me as COO, install someone else.” 

“You’re kidding,” Shiv pulls up short. “Fucking seriously?” 

“He told me he was going to Hong Kong to meet up with the VP suite there, but that’s apparently bullshit.” He stops, sipping his coffee. “I literally don’t even know what country the CEO is presently in or what he’s doing. He could be gambling away stock options in Monaco. Snorting blow off some hooker’s ass while he buys some bullshit app for lesbians who like to knit.” 

“What do the suits say?” She pushes away her salad and he knows that’s a good sign. She and Ken lose all interest in food at the first sign of stress, don’t share his apparent oral fixation. Shiv’s weird thing about sucking her thumb notwithstanding because he’s always found it gross and disturbing.

“Frank’s panicking,” he shrugs. “Gerri’s sketchy as ever, but she doesn't like being in the dark about shit. And Ken’s undercutting Karolina’s office every chance he gets, so. . .” He shrugs again, not finishing the statement, lets his sister’s incredibly fast mind spin out on its own. 

“Would you move against him?” she presses. “If this goes to shit - if he doesn’t something stupid with Pierce - would you make a move?” 

“I’m just trying to hold onto the job I have,” he scoffs. Takes a giant bite of his sandwich and chews it thoroughly, Shiv’s eyes on him the whole time. “What about you?” 

“I’ve never been inside,” she says, vehement now. “Maybe Tom, but he got fucked in DC. Stuffed and brined like some kind of corporate Thanksgiving turkey.” She shakes her head. “The executive suite likes you and you’re already in -”

“No way,” he cuts her off. “I have a kid. Like, I’m an actual fucking single parent. And I’ve never wanted the top seat, not since Isla. That’s the whole reason Ken picked me and not you. I wouldn’t be a threat.” 

“Well become a fucking threat already,” she demands. “Our family’s legacy, most of our inheritance, and you’re just going to let Kendall and his junky girlfriend piss it away?” She sits back in the booth, clearly fuming. “Jesus Christ, grow a pair already, Rome.” 

“I’ll put that in my calendar,” he says snidely. “Maybe try to grow an extra set for your husband while I’m at it. A little two-for-one combo.” 

She flips him off for that, but she’s calmer by the time they part ways, her driver idling on the street, Roman’s face tipped up to the gray, shitty sky. Wonders if this kind of bleak backdrop is what people in boring middle states walk around facing, day in, day out. 

“Think about what I said,” Shiv urges. Pulls on his jacket before she tugs him into a hug. 

“We’ll work it out,” he promises. Kisses her cheek before they say goodbye. 

_Siobhan has officially climbed aboard the Fuck Ken train_ , he texts Gerri and Frank. 

Frank sends back something that’s basically gibberish, obviously an accidental keysmash, Gerri adding a thumb’s up, the only approval he needs these days. 

. . . 

“They’re sniffing around,” Cyd says into her glass of bourbon. “Not sure what the angle is there.” 

“Could be anything,” Roman shrugs. Kicks his leg under the bar, his foot connecting with a solid thud against the wood. 

“Sure,” Cyd smirks. “Has nothing do with the fact that your brother’s boffing Naomi Pierce.” 

“Boffing,” Roman repeats, looking around for the others. The bar is so crowded he can’t even see the entrance, but he needs something to do. “Is that slang from the eighties? Is this, like, a social history lesson? Gonna tell me stories about Studio 54 next?” 

“That wasn’t my scene,” she says. “And Studio 54 was before the eighties, which you would know if you ever watched anything other than cartoons - or porn.” 

“You know they make cartoons that _are_ porn.” Cyd reaches over to yank on his ear hard enough to make him yelp. “ _Ow_.” 

“What did you do?” Karolina asks, turning up beside him. Dumps her bag in the empty chair, two seats down. 

“She fucking assaulted me,” he says. “That’s what she did.”

“No,” Karolina retorts. “I meant _you._ What did you do to earn that?” 

Gerri trails in behind her, phone pressed to her ear and a closed off expression on her face, and Roman orders her a martini to save himself from replying, Karolina shrugging out of her blazer as she peers down at the wine menu. 

“Just send it to the weekend house,” Gerri says into the phone with a sigh. “Alright, I need to go. Uh-huh. You too.” 

“Claire?” Karolina asks when Gerri hangs up, sounds sympathetic. 

“God help me,” Gerri murmurs. “If her divorce doesn’t wrap up soon, I’m moving to another country.” 

“She isn’t staying with you the whole time is she?” Cyd asks, Roman playing on his phone while he listens. Slides the martini over as Gerri settles in the seat directly to his right. 

“Fuck if I know,” Gerri says, snatching up her drink. 

Drinks were Karolina’s idea, the four of them getting a night out while Kendall fucks off to do God-knows-what. But it becomes clear after a few minutes that he’s the odd man out here, Cyd and Karolina plying Gerri with questions about her daughter because apparently they know way more about her private life than he does. Cyd cracking jokes about divorce and men being useless, how Karolina is the smartest because she didn’t marry a walking, talking erection.

“Present company excluded,” Karolina says gently. Tucks her head to catch Roman’s eye, her smile an affectionate one. 

“No exclusion necessary,” he allows. “Did my fair share of being a raging fucking idiot. That much is well documented.” 

“Not that idiotic,” Cyd says. Pats him on the arm. “Never had to sit in a meeting to triage a dick pic of yours that was about to leak out.” 

“Lean on some twenty-year-old waitress,” Karolina adds. “Convince her to sign an NDA.” 

“Or get her to agree to a paternity test,” Gerri says wryly, and Roman doesn’t even know which of his brothers that was. Fuck, maybe it was Logan? 

“Only the one kid,” he drawls, trying to make a joke of it. “And the one woman I tricked into marrying me because I knocked her up.” 

It’s not normally something he talks about, but all three of them had to sit in strategy sessions about his quickie, unannounced wedding and then Grace’s pregnancy. Still remembers when Gerri and the family attorney both turned up at his apartment with a prenup and a list of questions he resented the fuck out of, Grace hiding away in the penthouse’s bedroom as Roman sat on the couch with sweating hands. 

“Are you dating yet?’ Cyd asks, and Roman’s so deep in his thoughts he misses the question for a moment. 

“Am I what?” 

“Dating,” Cyd repeats. “You know, that thing two people do where they agree to make false promises, until they can no longer stand to be in the same room.”

He hears Gerri snort softly as he studies his drink. Finally decides on, “There is someone, but it’s tricky because of Isla and I just - I was never good at dating.” 

“Tabitha’s lovely,” Karolina chimes in, probably trying to save him from flailing under the scrutiny. “I met her at the benefit. Very sharp.” 

“Was that the tall blond?” Cyd asks, but it sounds like the question is directed at Karolina more than it is him and he squirms in his seat while they both talk past him. Feels Gerri’s shoe touch his for a moment, the brief contact of leather on leather stilling his jittery leg. “Well, I heard from a credible source that you caught the eye of Pierce’s CEO.” 

“Rhea Jarrell?” Karolina asks sourly, and Roman rolls his eyes. He’s not above a weird, corporate dry hump as a ploy, it used to be his go-to back in Films, but the whole thing about Kendall and Pierce makes him nervous and worried now, no idea what his brother is up to this week. 

“She’s attractive,” Gerri says, and he looks over at her here. Sees the twitch of her mouth over her martini glass. “But aside from the professional complications, she’s way too old for you.” 

“I live for complications,” he says. Slides his shoe against hers under the bar, a brief movement of his leg that mirrors her previous one. “And I do like blonds. . . Alas, I prefer partners who wouldn’t gladly mount my head on a pike.” 

“Guess you’re stuck with the leggy one,” Cyd says, perusing a food menu now. “How horrible for you.” 

Roman doesn’t have more than two drinks, knows he’d probably end up flat on the floor if he did, barely ate dinner at home because he was too busy getting Isla to eat hers as she pitched a fucking fit about something else. 

“Is Lydia back?” Gerri asks over her third martini, Karolina texting away on her phone. Hopefully not work, but probably so. 

“Yeah,” he breathes out. “Glad her daughter’s okay, but life without her kind of sucked.” He pauses, feeling Gerri shift in a way that makes their arms brush, and he tries not to think about the way her skin feels or how she looked on Sunday. A soft blue dress that he wanted to run his fingers along, Isla chatting away at her as the three of them made a stack of banana pancakes disappear, Gerri touching his arm every time he topped off her coffee. “Like, how many toys did Frank think she needed in the living room last night? Fucking really.” 

“I can’t decide if I’m offended that you never tap me for babysitting duties,” Cyd drums her fingers against the bar. “Worried about the naughty words I might teach the rabbit?” 

“No more than Gerri,” Roman replies. 

“Fuck off,” Gerri says. 

“See,” he smirks at Cyd. “No wonder Shiv turned out the way she did, with a godmother like that.” 

They wrap up after everyone but him has been thoroughly doused in booze, Cyd texting away on her phone as Roman tries to look over her shoulder. 

“Who are you texting?” he demands, Cyd pushing his face away with her free hand. “Uh, ma’am, is that a booty call?” He means it as a joke but Cyd looks chagrined and that makes him giggle, Gerri letting out a tiny laugh. “Hell yeah, ATN! Propping up that sweet, sweet Cialis stock since 1994.” 

“Bite me.” 

That makes Karolina dissolve into giggles, which probably means she’s a drunk, and Roman waits to make sure she gets to her car okay when they all leave. Helps her into the giant SUV with an outstretched hand. 

“I’m fine,” Karolina dismisses, Gerri slipping into her own car without so much as a glance in his direction. 

“You know the Pierce shit is really a problem,” Cyd says when they’re alone, both of their cars just down the street.

“It’s being handled.”

“I’d be happy to help with the handling,” she says, a teaspoon of lightness in her tone. “If ever my help was needed.” 

“That might be necessary,” he allows. Knows at some point soon he’ll have to circle the firing squad around Ken, can probably count on everyone at this point but fucking Karl. “Trying to keep it off your desk for now.”

“You’re my favorite,” Cyd reminds him, her voice steely in a way he rarely hears. Not directed at him anyway. “Don’t fuck me over.” 

“Never,” he promises, and she pats his cheek. Reminds him of that party in the Hamptons when he was fourteen and kept stealing her drinks, how she covered for him later when he booted into a potted plant and then blamed it on Connor. 

Lydia seems a little flattened when he gets home, but he doesn’t ask. Maybe it was Isla being a grump, but more likely it’s personal stuff and for that she doesn’t owe him an explanation.

“Goodnight,” she says softly, touching his arm as she leaves.

“Night.”

She’s been gone maybe ten minutes when Gerri turns up at his door, no text to warn him of her impending arrival.

“I’m sorry,” he says with a smile as he leans against the open door. “We already bought our Girl Scout cookies.”

“Guess I’ll have to work on another merit badge,” she breezes. Closes the door behind her and leans back against it. 

He’d have expected her to stop by after they left the Carlyle, but she didn’t text and he resigned himself to a shower and bed. And now he’s standing in front of her, tracing the rounded neckline of her blouse with an index finger, her eyes glued to his face like she’s waiting for him to do something.

“How long is your daughter staying with you?” he asks. Watches the way that little line appears in her forehead, her eyes dark and unblinking.

“Angling for an invitation?” 

“Maybe,” he hedges, though he thinks that’s probably risky, harder to explain if someone found out. “Mostly making conversation. You don’t talk much about them.”

“Wouldn’t make for pleasant couch conversation,” she says, her face unreadable now, and Roman drops his hand from her blouse, pulling away.

“What?” 

He shrugs, doesn’t know how to articulate the feeling. Karolina and Cyd and even fucking Frank know more about her non-work life than he does. It’s unpleasant, makes him feel skittish, like she’s deliberately keeping him at arms length.

Her mouth tastes her martini when she kisses him and he runs his tongue along her teeth, doesn’t shy away from the brine. But then she’s pressing herself into him, her breasts rubbing against his chest, and he breaks the kiss with an awkward smile. 

“Let’s, uh, let’s sit down,” he says and she frowns at that. Follows him when he moves into the living room. 

“Did you want to talk about the Rhea stuff?” she asks, lowering herself onto the couch.

“Not particularly,” he says, and then they’re kissing again, Gerri making soft sounds as he brushes his fingers through her hair. Moves his lips from her mouth to her neck and then back again, back and forth, back and forth.

“Is this punishment for that joke at the bar?” she asks, sounding impatient. But he doesn’t know what joke she’s talking about and he sure as fuck doesn’t know what he’s doing that could possibly be considered a punishment.

“Do you not like this?” He pulls away, frowning now, maybe defensive, and Gerri smirks, her hand on his shoulder.

“Of course I do,” she dismisses. “You’re very good at it.”

“But?” he puzzles. Feels like he’s missing something.

“But nothing,” she smirks, little lines forming around her eyes as she squints. “Just patiently waiting for the next merit badge.” He doesn’t realize that he’s physically recoiled at the words until her expression changes, shifts from annoyance to confusion and then onto something else, something softer but that he doesn’t quite believe. “Roman. . .”

“Maybe we should talk about the Pierce stuff,” he says, sitting up straighter. Rubs his hands on his pants, looking at the floor. “Cyd basically said she would back us tonight, so whatever the next play is can include ATN.”

“You’re always been her favorite,” Gerri says, but her voice is off, not quite level. “Rome, I don’t talk about the girls because it’s… difficult. Not everyone has the relationship that you and Isla have.”

“Okay,” he says, and she leans back, head resting against the couch.

“What is it you want to know?”

“Anything,” he says, shrugging one shoulder awkwardly. “I just. . . I don’t know. Want you to talk to me. About shit that isn’t Waystar or my idiot extended family.”

“I do talk to you,” she sighs. Closes her eyes here.

“Okay.”

“Stop saying okay,” she demands, but he doesn’t know why she’s the one upset when they’re in his house, on his couch, with his kid sleeping upstairs, one of her cardigans still in his nightstand because he doesn’t want to give it back.

“You read my kid stories,” he says after a strained silence. “Gerri, this isn’t just some - you read Isla stories. She asks for you when you’re gone.”

Her face softens once more at that, her eyes trained on him as he tries not to fidget. He thinks maybe if they say goodnight here it’ll be fine, nothing said to lose sleep over. Nothing he’ll regret, have to run away from.

“Come here,” she says, reaching out for his hand, but he doesn’t move and it’s her that kisses him, one hand cupping his face.

Her mouth is soft and slow, the kind of kisses they shared the first few times they did this. She doesn’t deepen them, not even when she pivots, getting up to sit in his lap. Just presses her mouth to his over and over, so gently that his head spins, blood rushing in his ears.

“We don’t have to,” she murmurs, when he moves to cup her breast, and he nips at her lip for that, feels the way her breath stutters against his mouth.

“I want to hear your voice all the time,” he says, presses his face into her neck, fingers circling a nipple through layers of expensive fabric. “Wonder what you’d say about all kinds of shit when you’re not around to see it.”

She’s kissing him hard after that, nails digging into his neck as he massages her breast, moves one hand to grope her ass, and she licks into his mouth, making him groan in a way that she seems to swallow right down.

He doesn’t realize that they’re shifting to lie down later on, not until she’s pulling him over her, one of her legs wrapping around him, and he lets out a grunt at the sensation of his dick hard and against her, really against her, her skirt shoved up around her waist, her blouse already peeled open.

“I’m not fucking you on a couch,” he pants into her ear, both of her hands on his ass, forcing as much friction as she can get.

“I’d be willing to lower my standards,” she grounds out before he kisses her again. Grabs one of her arms, guiding her hand to her own thigh.

“Lots of ways to earn a merit badge,” he promises. Moves her hand to her panties as she arches beneath him.

“Rome,” she begs, but he doesn’t know what she’s begging for, only has so many things left to give. But they can do this - they can have this. “ _Please_.”

“For me,” he urges, still guiding her hand. Moves his mouth to her breast, bra pulled down by his teeth, exposing a nipple, pale and pink and so fucking perfect when he sucks it into his mouth.

He had to move his pelvis to accommodate her hand, his erection digging into her thigh now, but then he feels her arm as she starts to touch herself and all he can do is pull back and watch her face. See her eyes slip closed and her bottom lip sucked between her teeth as her hand moves under her panties, swirling in tight circles, a movement he can feel against his own leg. 

“Touch me,” she breathes out, and so he does. Cradles her face and kisses her collarbone, runs his mouth across her chest until she’s arching off the couch again, her thigh catching against his dick, rubbing in a way that makes him whine.

“I need to see you,” he murmurs, mouth open and pressed to her cheek. Because she’s so responsive - she’s always so fucking responsive, it’s like holding an exqusite violin, a fucking Stradivarius, and he needs more of her now. Needs to know what she looks like when she makes herself come, fingers pushed inside herself. “Please, just let me see you, your perfect fucking face.”

She groans at that, bends one leg and wraps it around him again, his pelvis pressing into her hand, the movement of her fingers fast and frantic, and he can’t help but push against her, push his groin into the back of her hand, feels the slide of damp satin and skin against his pants.

“Again,” she says, and now she’s pulling him in with a hand on his hip, his mouth next to hers when he chases the friction, pelvis pushing against her never stilling hand. “Please, fuck me.”

“Open your eyes,” he gasps. His dick is lined up against the back of her hand, his hips jerking in time with it, pulled along on a marionette string. 

“Rome.” It’s barely a murmur and her eyes are so blue when she stares up at him. He can’t get enough oxygen into his lungs, feels like the elevation of the room shot up a few thousand feet.

He feels her body go rigid, that soft sound she made on the phone as her hips shoot up, Roman pressing his mouth to her jaw, her body pulling taut and then going slack, a rubber band that’s snapped. But then time speeds up and stops, the hand that’s been gripping his hip sliding down to cup him, her palm and fingers moving against him, and her panties are so fucking wet, he can feel feel against his thigh even through his pants. 

He can’t stop his hips from jerking into her touch.

“Gerri,” he gasps, and it was meant to be a warning, a pleas to stop, but he can smell her so strongly now and she’s pressing into him, solid and warm, her hand steady in its movement.

He’s about to say something else when she slides her damp fingers into his mouth and, fuck, now he tastes her - actually tastes her, real and there and not imagined in his bed, orgasm still coating her skin, and it’s all he can do to chase it down with his tongue. Sucks the two fingers in as deep as he can without making himself choke. 

“So close.” Her voice is like velvet, her face right there, cheek pressed to his. He feels desperate, out of his mind as he swallows her fingers and keep humping away at her groping hand, and then a moment later she’s pulling out of his mouth, the hand on his dick tightening - gripping him so hard it fucking hurts, lights going off behind his eyes as his jaw clenches. 

“Oh shit,” he chokes, and then he’s coming, wet fingers on his neck, forehead pressed to hers as everything else falls away. 

He lies still for a minute, maybe two, the sense of failure seeping in slowly, winter rain through a too thin coat. 

“Baird and I bought a weekend house years ago, out in Rhinebeck.” She says it idly, fingers running along his back, and he doesn’t know what to say to that. Doesn’t think he can swallow the shame enough to speak. “I never go anymore. Never have the time. But I’m thinking maybe this month, while the leaves are starting to turn.” She hums contentedly. Taps out a slow rhythm, right at the base of his spine. ”Maybe Isla would like it.” 

“Maybe,” he says into her chest, and she rakes her nails through his hair, makes a lush, airy sound, warm breath against his hair. A comfort even as he lies there, half waiting for the world to end.

. . . 

  
  



	10. Chapter 10

“Honey, don’t unzip your jacket, it’s raining outside.” 

“It’s scratchy!” 

“You said you like that coat because it wasn’t scratchy. Remember?” Roman looks out the car window, scowling at the sheets of fucking rain. “We tried on a bunch of coats and you said you wanted that one because it wasn’t scratchy at all, and then you got ice cream.” 

“I wanted it because it’s purple - it’s the color purple so I didn’t mind the scratchy and then there was _ice cream_ , but Daddy, it’s still scratchy!” 

They get all the way to the school before Isla completely implodes, her former teacher taking her by the hand and leading her into the building, Isla already calming down because the hysterics never last long with other people, only with him, and he can never decide if that’s better or worse. 

“Still raining out there?” Frank asks him first thing, and Roman pointedly looks down at his rain spattered jacket. “Kendall wants to see you in half an hour, something about the Argestes lineup.” 

“Maybe he’s dropping me from everything and I can just stay home and eat cereal. Catch up on the cartoons I’ve missed since taking this job.” 

“Oh, so we’re in that kind of mood, are we?” 

He knows Frank’s not trying to be patronizing, it’s actually him that’s being the dick, but Isla woke up with a nightmare last night and their whole morning was shit, and maybe it’s a phase, just a difficult phase, but he worries that the stress from work is starting to permeate his home life, is maybe messing with his kid. 

“Grace’s parents are fighting me over when to take Isla,” he announces. Throws his wet jacket down on the couch across from his desk, Frank reaching over to grab it and then hanging it up with an annoyed look. 

“I thought they were taking her during Argestes?” 

“Me too,” Roman throws up his hands. “And I’m not, like, trying to be fucking difficult. But they keep changing their minds and I need them to make a plan and fucking stick to it.” 

“Maybe they’re trying,” Frank says, and Roman glares at him. Isn’t in the mood to feel sympathy for people who keep dragging their feet because of bullshit yoga retreats and regional theater commitments. 

The meeting with Kendall is as sketchy as meetings with Kendall always are now. He seems sober enough today, though maybe not all the way given how his right hand twitches every other word. When he tells Roman that he wants to yank Shiv from the Argestes lineup, Roman doesn’t push back. 

“She’ll be pissed,” he shrugs, “but probably just standard issue Shiv pissed.”

“You’ll call her?’ Ken asks. 

“Sure,” he says. “She’s already mad at me for a million things, what’s one more.” 

“We should talk about the Naomi stuff,” his brother says right before Roman walks out, and he hangs his head, slowly turns around. 

“What would you like to say about it?” he asks. Can’t help being a dick here. 

“That press, all those pictures this weekend - that wasn’t from Pierce.” 

He already knows that because it was Shiv who got the two outlets to run the photos and probably Cyd or Karolina who tipped off some photographers, but now it’s out in the open, all the shareholders know, and Ken’s been shoved back, put on the defensive. 

“Well it wasn’t from us, you didn’t even give Karolina a courtesy head’s up you were dating her, and those stories wreaked of PR framing. Forgive me if I don’t believe there wasn’t some Pierce fuckery involved in that loving display of affection.” 

“It’s not like that,” Kendall pleads, and sounds so fucking earnest. Fuck him so much for sounding so open and honest when he’s lying through his teeth. “Honestly, she just gets me. Someone in my corner.” He gestures with his twitchy-ass hand. “Everyone else is team Roman now, why can’t I have this?’ 

“Uh, everyone here is team Waystar,” Roman says. “It’s a fucking business.” He spins around again, not looking back when he says, “The only person who was ever team Roman died in a car crash. You watched me puke my guts out at her funeral, remember?” 

He feels guilty for that one, but not that much since Gerri dragged out of fucking Laird that Kendall’s top secret meeting was in Turkey, apparently rubbing dicks with some dude named Eduard whose family could front the money to take them private. 

_How’d that go?_ Gerri texts him after he settles back in his office. 

_Swell_ , he texts back. _He accused everyone of being on my side and I sucker punched him with the memory of my dead wife._

He plows through the day, stopping in the afternoon to negotiate with Grace’s parents via phone. Finally gets them nailed down to the week of Argestes, which makes everything else that much easier. 

“You’re getting bumped,” he tells Shiv on the phone. Doesn’t even say hello. 

“Fucking really,” she drawls. “You think he knows?’ 

“Nah,” he says. “I think your liberal arts education just makes him weird and insecure, and he doesn’t want the comparison. Not there, with those people.” 

“And you’re what, the image of intellectual confidence?” 

“Fuck you and no,” he replies. “But I at least listen to smarter people and know when to shut the fuck up now. Plus people hate you and like me, so.” She doesn’t take the bait on that one. “You want to show up anyway? Yank his chain?” 

“Sounds fun.”

“Don’t tell Tom.” She snorts at that and he checks the time, knows he needs to wrap it up. 

“And when he sees me packing? What am I supposed to say?” 

“That you have a naked dude waiting for you at some ski resort. I don’t know, whatever lies you usually tell in your hostage crisis of a marriage.” 

“Dude, fuck off, that’s not funny.” She sounds kind of pissed now, but Gerri and Karolina are waiting outside of his office, Roman waving them in, so he doesn’t stick around on the call to poke his sister in the ribs.

“Gotta go save your inheritance while you play your little DC games,” he snarks. “ Bye-bye now, love you.” 

“Shiv?” Karolina asks, already smiling, and he tiredly nods. Goes back to chugging the Red Bull he opened a few minutes ago. 

“How do you drink that?” Gerri asks, nose crinkling up in a way he finds delightful. 

“I’ve had worse things in my mouth,” he deadpans. Watches her face go expressionless as he looks on at her innocently. 

They get through their usual litany of shit, the list a little longer everyday, but he yawns twice while they’re talking and after the second time, Karolina stops mid-explanation of something. 

“You need to take a break,” she says. “You’re running yourself down.” 

“Says the woman who’s on call 24/7,” he dismisses with weird hand gesture. “I’m fine. . . It’s all shitty, but I’m fine.” 

He sees Karolina glance at Gerri for a second, and he knows immediately that some kind of strategizing happened before they came in. 

“You need rest,” she reiterates. “Roman, there’s a lot riding on you. You need to take care of yourself.” 

“I’m going to go out on a limb and assume that Gerri agrees,” he drawls, drumming his fingers on his desk. 

“I’m not particularly interested in cleaning up after two imploding Roy’s,” she says, sounding so perfectly bitchy he can’t help his chuckle. 

“Fucking thanks,” he says. “Jesus.” 

“Think about it,” Karolina urges. “Maybe take a day to bridge the weekend or something. You’ll need the rest before the run up to Argestes.” 

“Sure, sure,” he smirks. “I’m a child who needs to be told of my bedtime. I got it. Now, what’s next?” 

Lydia picks Isla up from swim that afternoon, which he’s ungodly grateful for because he thinks if he has to smell that much chlorine, it’s going to give him a debilitating headache. 

He lays down on the couch after dinner, Isla playing in the family room. Is thinking about maybe taking a nap right here, where he can hear her, when Gerri turns up at the door. 

“Isla’s still awake,” he warns, letting her in. 

“I figured,” she says, already taking off her coat. 

He isn’t sure how to act here, Isla under foot , Gerri having been a little aloof the last two weeks, both of them constantly huddling with Frank at all hours, trying to stem the fallout from what will undoubtedly be a failed attempt to take them private. 

“Isla,” Roman calls. “Gerri’s here.” 

Bedtime goes a little smoother with Gerri present, Isla settling right down, Roman half asleep standing up as he listens to her read. 

“I should have called first,” Gerri says, out in the hall. “You look exhausted.”

That reminds him. 

“I assume that little gambit with Karolina was your idea?” 

“You do need rest,” she says. “And I thought it was better if it didn’t come from me.” 

“Hm,” he says because he isn’t sure what to make of that. They haven’t seen each other much, not alone anyway, and the last time they did he came in his pants and she waxed poetic about them going to the vacation house she bought with her late husband. “I need to get into clothes that feel less miserable. You want a drink?” 

“I’ll get it,” she says. “You change.” 

He expects to meet her downstairs, but by the time he’s barefoot, wearing a pair of loose fitting pants and an old university t-shirt, she turns up at his bedroom door, scotch in hand. 

He feels at a loss, staring at her in his own bedroom. Sits down on the bed and pats the spot beside him when she lingers by the door, maybe waiting for a sign. 

“I need the days to get less long,” he sighs, helping himself to her drink. 

“I don’t foresee that in the near future,” she admits. “Not with your brother swinging around like a wrecking ball.” 

“No,” he agrees, handing her drink back. “And fuck him very much.” 

“I was serious about the invite to the house in Rhinebeck,” she says suddenly, none of the usual smoothness he associates with her. 

“I wasn’t sure,” he frowns. “Sometimes people say things after - sometimes people say things they don’t mean later. I didn’t want to assume.” 

“I meant it,” she nods. But then the silence stretches and the awkwardness of being in his bedroom, on his bed, finally gets to him. He’s about to stand up, lead them downstairs when she asks, “Do you say things you don’t mean?” 

“Not to you,” he breathes out. He feels her staring at him here but it feels so hard to meet her gaze now, harder than before. “I mean everything with you.” 

It’s a little stilted when she kisses him. Usually when this happens there’s a drink or two involved, but they’re both dead sober now and he’s so tired he could sleep for a week, and after a few minutes of kissing he puts her drink down on the bedside table. Stretches out on the bed. 

“Just for a minute,” he promises, pulling her by the hand. Sees the reluctance in her movements, like she thinks what he’s asking her to do is weird. 

“Don’t let me fall asleep,” she says, haltingly lying down next to him, and he scoots over. Drapes an arm over her midsection. 

“I am painfully desperate to get you naked and put my mouth all over your body,” he confesses into her hair. Feels her breath leave her chest in a rush. “But not with my kid down the hall, when I’m so tired I almost fell asleep to you reading that fucking Matilda book.” 

He feels her relax after that, snuggling into him more, and at some point he falls asleep against her, the lamp still on, her hair tickling his face. Wakes up to her turning the lamp off, already out of the bed. 

“Stay,” he says sleepily, hears her huff at that. 

“I can’t,” she replies. If he were fully awake, more with it, he would know that it’s a bad idea, but instead he catches her arm, tugging her back to bed.

“Roman,” she sighs. Doesn’t put up much resistance before she’s capitulating. 

“You still smell good,” he slurs, kissing her neck. 

“Go to sleep.” He kisses her neck again, hand worming under her blouse. Prods around until he manages to unclasp her bra, replacing the lined cup with his hand. “Anything else?’ she asks with a chuckle. Clucks her tongue like he’s an impatient child. 

“Nope,” he sighs. Holds her tighter with his arm. 

It’s bright in the room when he wakes up, rolls over to find her gone. The bedroom door is open and he hears noises downstairs, rolls over again with a groan and then hefts himself up, padding down the hall to investigate what Isla’s already into. Has to search his memory to remember that it’s Saturday and Isla doesn’t have anything until later, after he goes into the office to work on shit he never got done. 

“Sometimes a secret is something you protect so that it’s yours and yours alone,” he hears Gerri saying. Walks into the kitchen to find her with Isla, breakfast spread out on the table, the juicer out on the counter and half a pitcher of orange juice already idling. “Morning,” she says to him. Seems a little uncertain. 

“Morning, Daddy.” 

“Hello, rabbit,” he says and kisses the top of Isla's head. Hovers in front of Gerri for an instant before he makes a decision. “And hello to you, too.” 

Isla doesn’t even blink when he kisses Gerri on the mouth, just keeps gulping down her juice as he cups Gerri’s face, presses his lips to hers. 

. . . 

“You taking off this weekend?” Ken asks him an hour before a shareholders call. 

“Yeah, I think I need a break,” Roman replies. Decides that admitting a weakness is probably the best strategy. “Maybe take Isla somewhere out of town, cut out Friday.” 

“I hate that the Hamptons is no man's land now,” Ken shakes his head. Seems uncomfortable on his feet, repeatedly shifting his weight. 

“What, you don’t want to run into Marcia? Help her pick out melon at that little grocery store?”

“God, do you remember when you knocked down that display, got us yelled at?” 

“Uh, I knocked it down to cover for you, you fucking jackass.” Their dad went ballistic over it, but the memory still makes Roman smile, both of them laughing their asses off until Frank came to pick them up, shaking his head as he pointed toward the car. 

“Fuck Logan,” Kendall says. Doesn’t sound all that convincing. “We should go to the Hamptons anyway. Buy another house. Take all the kids on the weekends.” 

“Sure,” Roman nods. Knows it’ll never happen and Ken hasn’t even seen his kids in months. 

The shareholders call is a complete shitshow, everyone with their knives out, most of them aimed at Kendall because Gerri and Frank have been quietly working to keep it that way. 

“Romulus,” some old asshole says, “what do you think?”

“I think Pierce and Waystar have irreconcilable corporate philosophies,” he replies. “But I also think the CEO is allowed to have a private life.” 

Gerri makes a show of wincing like she thinks it was a bad answer, even though it’s word for word what they agreed he should say, Franking pursing his lips like he sucked half a lemon into his mouth and someone just told him the other half’s getting kicked straight up his dick. 

“Seriously?” Ken says, as soon as they’re off the call. “Fucking seriously?” 

“You said the Naomi stuff was purely personal,” Roman says, feigning a flail here. “Was that a bullshit line you told me? Because dude, I fucking need to know if we’re getting in bed with Pierce if you don’t want me to bomb on questions like that!”

“Gerri, my office,” Kendall says, and Frank drums his fingers on the table. Looks like he’s thinking so hard, smoke might start coming out his fucking ears. 

“How many votes do you think we just lost?’ Roman asks with a nervous nod. 

“We’ll get ‘em back,” Frank says. Tries to paper over it with a smile that only makes Roman more nervous. “Heard you trying to get out of town this weekend.” 

“I think Isla’s needs a break,” he shrugs. “Something out of the city.” 

“At some point Gerri had a house in the Hudson Valley,” Frank says, and Roman tries not to freeze, look caught. “Can’t remember which town, but Baird used to talk about it sometimes. A place away from everything Waystar related.”

“What was Baird like?” It’s a stupid question - a stupid, leading question, but he feels so thin skinned today, everything in danger of seeping out, and all he can think about is the way Gerri looks at his dining table, sitting next to his kid, and it feels weird to know that there’s this part of her life he knows nothing about it. “I don’t remember much about him except him just kind of. . . silently lurking.” 

“He was a bit of a closed book,” Frank says. “Good colleague. Solid. But hard to read.” He shrugs. “One of the things they had in common, I guess.” 

He spends the rest of the day calling shareholders, carefully trying to bury to his brother while not fucking their proxy battle votes, and at least three people testing the waters, obviously gauging his interest in the top seat. 

“I was raised to do whatever’s best for Waystar,” he says, but it all feels like such utter crap now. He doesn’t know how he makes it sound so believable. 

_Did you tell Isla about this weekend?_ Gerri texts him later, probably on her way home. 

_Not yet,_ he replies. He’s been looking forward to telling her but wants it to be a surprise. Thinks maybe it’s safer that way, too. 

Everything explodes at home almost as soon as he hangs up his jacket and takes his shoes off, his phone ringing off the hook with calls from Kendall and Shiv and then, of all fucking people, cousin Greg. 

“Fuck off,” he says to the screen as he sends Greg to voicemail, but then Isla’s throwing a fit about something and Grace’s parents are calling because Grace’s sister is having a surgery of some kind and they want to change weekends again. “I really need Isla to have some consistency,” he explains to them on speaker phone in the study. Tries to remain calm here, rather than shouting his head off. 

They agree to this weekend because it’s the only weekend that really works, and Roman hates that. Hates that he’s going to have to bail on Gerri, maybe look like he didn’t want to go and he was looking for a reason to get out of it. 

_Can you call when you have time?_ he texts her. Can’t decide if he wants to shower while he waits but ends up skipping it, scared he’ll miss her call. 

“Sorry,” she says when she calls two hours later. “I was out with Claire. What’s wrong?” She sounds worried, anxious even, and he realizes he should have just told her over text rather than sending something vague and ominous. 

“Isla’s grandparents are taking her this weekend. her idiot aunt is having surgery. Probably another nose job, knowing her. They had to switch dates.” 

“Oh,” she sighs. “Well, that’s alright. Can’t be helped I suppose.” 

“I really am sorry,” he says. “I was looking forward to it.” 

“Well you’re still coming, right?” she asks, and his brain rushes to fill the silence because he wasn’t expecting that question, just assumed it was a package deal or nothing at all. Though now he doesn’t know why he assumed that. 

“Right,” he says, voice cracking. “Of course I am.” 

“Roman -” 

“I’m coming,” he says, more confident now. “I’ve been googling the area and everything. Gonna spend a thousand dollars in that fucking candy shop, come hell or high water.” 

“You can scope it out for when the rabbit comes,” she replies, sounding affectionate here. Warm in a way that makes his chest feel full, stuffed to the brim. 

“Tell me about your girls night out,” he says. 

“She was getting an award,” she says flatly. “An award given to novelists who write a book complaining about their childhoods while simultaneously living on their parents’ money. Presumably by other writers who do the same.” 

“I’m guessing she didn’t ask you to give her acceptance speech,” he smirks. Tries to temper the sourness in her voice with the bit of humor he can offer. 

“She did not,” she says, “and I've now fulfilled my motherly duties for the next year, so it was worth the waste of time in that regard.” 

“Well at least it’s over,” he says lamely. Doesn’t know what else to say. It’s weird to hear her talk about her rapport with her oldest daughter as so transactional, her tone cool and detached now, the way she sounds when they’re talking Waystar and strategy. 

They chat for a little before they both need to sleep, but then it’s time to say goodbye and Gerri clears her throat, a cue if ever he heard one. 

“I think I’ve spoiled you,” he laughs. “You’ve very demanding now.” 

“Maybe,” she allows, obviously amused. “But I’d still like to be given my due now, if you don’t mind.” 

“I slept better next to you than I have in a year,” he admits, pausing to hear her sigh on the other end. “I’d like to do it again soon. Goodnight.” 

. . .

The full meaning of a weekend away and alone doesn’t really hit him until the next day, in the conference room, a dozen people piled in to talk about Stewy and Sandy, every week a battle of inflicting and receiving the most strategic of paper cuts. 

Karolina says something and Gerri tilts her head, fiddling with her watch as her pen hovers, and Roman thinks about what it would be like to watch her get dressed, carefully selecting her bracelets for the day. But then he thinks about what it would like to watch her get undressed and his brain comes to grinding halt because he realizes he’s committed to spending time alone with her without the buffer of work, or people interrupting them, or even his kid to keep happy and calm, and there’s no way this won’t blow up his face. He doesn’t even think about the sex aspect of it - he can’t even think about the sex aspect because it’s too scary, a little bit surreal, but there will be meals and mornings (even if he messes up, there’s bound to be at least one morning, right?) and he’s never done well in quiet moments, always manages to say the wrong thing. No way this doesn’t end in a spectacular fucking disaster, Gerri staring at him with aggrieved disappointment.

He doesn’t hang around to chat with anyone after the meeting, just fast walks back to his office and sequesters himself there, taking calls, burying land mines for his brother to trip on.

 _I normally drive out to the weekend house_ , she texts him that night and it takes him a minute to gather her meaning. Drive as to drive oneself rather than to be driven, and he puzzles at that. Wonders what kind of cars she favors and how she drives, whether she’s out of practice or it’s just one more thing she’s a fucking natural at, never gets rusty. 

_Probably smarter than my taking a car service out there_ , he says. Feels some trepidation at the idea of tacking a car ride onto what he’s already in for, but they need to be careful and it’s one thing for Gerri to come and go from his house, another for him to go to her house overnight. 

Isla’s grandparents agree to come to New York to fetch her, a concession they freely offered and that makes him a little less resentful of the flighty shit they pulled. But the night before Isla throws a fit about going, actually throws herself on the ground the way she did when she was five, and as soon as she gets her to bed he makes another appointment with her therapist. Feels a nauseating pressure in his stomach, like dinner might come back up. 

He’d normally text Gerri here, complain into her inbox until she calls him, but things are weird there, he feels like maybe they’re both avoiding each other at work, and the idea of a phone chat with her being anything other than pleasant is a bridge he won’t burn. Washes his face and dumps himself in bed with a groan.

_Awake?_

It’s tempting to ignore the text when it comes in, pretend to be asleep, but it feels abysmally shitty to not answer, too cowardly even for him, so he picks up the little bat phone, skips right to calling her. 

“Hi,” Gerri says. Sounds tired.

“I was just thinking about you,” he says. Tries his best to sound charming.

“So that’s why I can’t sleep. Roman Roy’s dirty little thoughts haunting me in the comfort of my own home.”

“I never said they were dirty,” he teases. “You just have a one-track mind.”

“Alright,” she replies. “So what were you thinking about?”

“Whether you’re a good driver.” He plucks out the first safe thought that comes to mind. “I don’t think I could drive a block without taking out a car or two.” She hums, doesn’t answer one way or the other. “Tell me about this weekend house.”

“You’ll be seeing soon enough. Nothing grand. Certainly nothing up to typical Roy standards.” There’s a kind of prickliness there he isn’t expecting, doesn’t know where it came from, and he stops. Swallows down the shitty rejoinder that immediately comes to mind. “Baird wanted something in the Hamptons and I refused because of the proximity to your family. Rhinebeck was the eventual compromise, though he always made it out to be my decision.”

“Hmm,” he says, afraid to say the wrong thing, make her prickle up like a hedgehog.

“Do you want me to let you go?” she asks.

“No,” he breathes out. “But Isla threw a fit about going to Ojai and I’m a little out of it. Can you… can you just talk to me?” 

“I let Baird pick out the house because I didn’t care. The girls were little, three and five, and I didn’t want to have to think about it. Basically gave him a list and told him to make it his problem rather than mine.” She pauses and he thinks back to similar conversations with Grace, times when he let her take charge of decisions but then resented the things she came up with without him, how they were never what he wanted. “I didn’t love the house, but it had a pretty porch and a sun room the girls loved to play in while we worked, fielding calls. He could have done worse, I suppose.”

“I can’t remember,” he says suddenly. “Did you ever come to the Calabasas house?”

“Once,” she says. “During that lawsuit with that production company you broke a contract with.”

“Oh yeah,” he laughs. “That guy was so pissed, I think he could have killed me with his bare hands.”

“You were reckless and an asshole,” Gerri sniffs. “But yes, that’s the time I saw the house. Dropped off papers on my way out of town.”

“That pool was so fucking ugly, I could never get over Grace liking it.”

“Hideous,” she agrees. “Truly hideous.”

“The same guy designed the grotto at the playboy mansion,” he gleefully discloses. Takes delight in her snorted out laugh.

“All your money, and you couldn’t buy something with even a modicum of taste.”

“I did better this time,” he says, fishing a little.

“You did,” she echoes immediately. “Your bedroom and study are far and away the most attractive rooms ever to belong to a Roy.”

“I was trying to un-Roy my life,” he says, buoyed by the compliment. 

For a while they talk about all the ugly, ostentatious houses his family has owned, but eventually the conversation circles back to Rhinebeck and the weekend, anxiety pricking at his skin as he lies there in the dark. 

“Do you want me to pick you up at the airport after you offload Isla?”

“That could work,” he yawns. “Can you actually weasel out of the office that early?”

“I already have something else on my calendar,” she replies. “And the nice thing about being me is very few people feel comfortable asking me personal questions.”

“You’ll have to teach me that trick,” he smirks.

“Too late,” she tsks. “People already find you far too approachable for you to ever bank on being cold and aloof.”

“You aren’t cold,” he says, light tone temporarily evaporating.

“Guarded,” she modifies.

“The rarest, most exquisite things are always guarded,” he says. “One has to keep the riff raff away from them.”

“Roman,” she sighs. Sounds exasperated, but in that way that means she’s smiling.

“I want to kiss you without interruption,” he whispers. “I want more than stolen moments at the end of a fucking horrible day.” He hears her suck in a long breath, and his pulse quickens because he knows what that rush of air feels like against his skin, and as terrified as he is of what’s ahead, he’d gnaw his own arm off to feel it again. “I have daydreams about how your skin tastes when it’s sweaty. Sleep well, goodnight.”

. . . 

Isla’s chirpy as fuck on the morning before she leaves, zipping around the house, smiling and laughing, telling him stories about things that happened at school the day before. 

“You have school work to do since you’re out today,” he reminds her. Has already sent a long, explanatory text to her grandparents, but things go better when Isla’s expecting them, has been warned several times about things she won’t like doing. “We won’t leave the house for another few hours, okay?” 

“Kay!” 

Eva emails him about something a little after ten, Roman going through Isla’s suitcase, trying to make sure she has everything she needs. He really needs to pack his own shit, but he’s putting it off. Doesn’t know how much stuff to bring and certainly isn’t about to ask Gerri how many nights he should plan on staying. 

“What up,” he says to Eva when she calls, was already three sentences into his reply email when the phone rings. 

“Sorry to bother you,” she says. “Gerri sent me an email and now I can’t reach her, just needed to confirm something.” 

“You can’t reach Gerri?” he asks, worried here. It’s one thing not to go into the office all weekend, but there’s no way she wouldn’t stay tethered to her phone.

“Doctor’s appointment,” Eva says offhandedly, then leads into her question. 

Roman feels a little out of sorts when they hang up ten minutes later, has to re-pack Isla’s bag because he nervously riffled through while he was talking, everything out of place now. And then he has to pack his own shit, throws his stuff into as small a bag as he can manage so he won’t look stupidly presumptuous if Gerri was planning on an up and back trip, or else for him to leave alone the next day. He shoehorns two changes of clothes and his toiletries into a small-ish messenger bag, throws a few other things into his laptop bag, along with all of his chargers. 

He feeds Isla lunch before they leave, doesn’t trust that she’ll like the selection on the jet, and then they’re in the car, Isla singing along to a song at the top of her lungs while he scrolls through work emails, forwards two things to Gerri even though he’ll see her in an hour or two. 

The jet’s late touching down and they’re a little early, Isla’s mood worsening as they circle the airport, their driver updating them every ten minutes. 

“Soon enough,” Roman promises, and Isla slumps down dramatically in the seat. Scuffs a sparkly pink shoe against the leather seat. 

Her grandparents are their usual woo-woo selves. Grace’s mother gives him a crystal that he’ll immediately be throwing the fuck out, Grace’s dad offering him the most awkward hug Roman has ever experienced, which is really fucking saying something, given who Siobhan married. 

“Daddy, if you come I can show you the horses,” Isla says, when he walks them back onto the jet. 

“I have to stay here,” he reminds her gently. “But you can send me pictures of the horses.” 

“You’re welcome anytime,” Grace’s mother says here, and Roman dodges that. Doesn’t want to think about how miserable and uncomfortable he’d be at that weird fucking house in Ojai. Barely made it through that one Christmas Grace dragged him to, Isla still a baby - a warm, pink, wriggling football in his arms. 

“Love you, rabbit,” he kisses her cheek. Hugs her one more time. “Be good and do your school work.” 

He texts Gerri when he’s walking down the jet bridge, still needs to grab his bag from his driver. 

_Running a little behind schedule_ , she texts back, and he doesn’t know what that means exactly, doesn’t want to text her back, distract her if she’s driving. 

Half an hour later he’s about to text his driver, have him circle back, when Gerri calls. 

“Sorry for the delay,” she says, a little clipped. Gives him directions to where she’s idling. 

“I didn’t realize the airport drivers were so fucking milfy,” he teases when he finds her silver Mercedes. It’s a coupe, a GLC 300’s he thinks, but he doesn’t get a good gander, throwing his bags in the back seat and then hopping in. 

“Ha ha,” she rolls her eyes. “Need anything before we take off?” 

He leans forward, giving her a quick kiss, maybe something to steady his nerves, and she stares at him when he pulls back, like she’s trying to decide how she feels about his having done that.

“Nothing else needed,” he says in a silly voice and turns his head, looking out the window. Drums his fingers on his leg for the first twenty minutes of traffic, debates turning on the radio, see what her presets are, doesn’t want to piss her off. 

“Can you check my emails for me?” she asks him once they’re out of the city, nods her head to where her work phone is stashed in a console. No apparent hesitation in giving him her passcode. 

“Do you really trust me to not send ‘fuck you’ emails to Karl under your name?” He scrolls through her inbox, already triaging things for her, scrolls past a few messages from Cyd that are obviously chatty. Doesn't read them, no matter how tempting. 

“I already send those,” she replies. “Can you read me the ones from Eva?” 

They do that for a while, him reading her messages and her dictating replies, and after he sends off the fifth message, he tries to work up the courage to get out the thing in his head. 

“Eva said something about a doctor’s appointment when she called me?” He tries for casual but doesn't know if he gets there. Watches her smile go from easy to practiced, like the flip of a switch. 

“It’s nothing,” she dismisses. Must see the face pulls because she says, “Old person shit. Boring and common, nothing serious.” 

He let’s it go, knows it isn’t his place to ask anymore questions, though maybe - maybe it is? 

The rest of the ride is mostly quiet and he settles in, checks his own email, stops to watch the scenery shifting through the window. And it’s a little cold in the car but he doesn’t turn up the heat, has noticed that Gerri runs a little warmer than he does, her office always chillier than he finds strictly comfortable. 

“For heaven’s sake,” she scoffs after he shivers for the third or fourth time. Turns up the heat with a quick stab of her finger. “Why didn’t you say something?” 

“Because you’re always warm,” he defends. “And it’s your car.” 

She mutters something else but he doesn’t catch it. Tries to pass the time without getting on her nerves, grateful when she turns off to get gas. 

He kind of has to pee but public restrooms really freak him out, so he goes into the little store and buys some candy and a bottle of water. Might as well compound the problem. 

“What do you have in there?” she asks, looking at his candy stash, and he shakes the bag at her. Watches her weigh her options before she snags a red gummy bear, then restarts the car. “Only another forty minutes or so,” she promises, like he’s a fucking child. 

“Just happy for the company,” he says. Fishes out another red gummy bear to hand her, a mile down the road. 

The house is white with blue trim and a wraparound porch, the kind of thing his mother would call ‘quaint’ in that horrible way she has. But he likes it, he thinks he likes it anyway, and he grabs his two bags and Gerri’s black suitcase as she heads up the steps. Hears her fiddling with the screen and then the front door. 

“This fucking lock,” she grumbles, shaking her head as she fights with the knob, but Roman can’t help her, his arms are loaded down, and anyway he’d never succeed where she’s struggling. 

He hears it finally click open, relieved because his fingers are going numb. He tries not to just throw the bags down in the foyer but one clatters against the wood floor anyway, Gerri staring hard at his messenger bag when he turns around to say something. 

“I think I need a drink after that drive,” she declares, heading off into what looks like the kitchen, and Roman closes his eyes. Already feels like he fucking failed some kind of test. 

He doesn’t follow her, not even when she doesn’t reappear, instead starts wandering around, looking at the smattering of family photos, a few antique plates sitting on a mantel in the hall. There’s a second sitting room off the living room, the kind of space that would be good to toss a couple of rowdy kids in, and on the wall is a picture of her family at the beach, Baird hugging their girls , Gerri beside them with a wry smile, her face a little thinner, clearly younger than he is now.

He never really thought about the fact that she must have been a few years younger than he was when she had her kids, and he marvels at that now. Wonders if she ever felt as fucking terrified as he did, just staring at Isla in her stroller and praying to all the gods he never believed in that he wouldn’t fuck this up. 

“Rome?” Her voice floats into where he’s standing and he follows it back to the kitchen, finds her sifting through groceries bags that have been left out on the counter. 

“Need some help?” he asks, but she shakes her head. Keeps on opening and closing cabinets, putting things away with a rhyme and reason he can’t quite follow. 

“We’ll mostly order in,” she announces. “But in the morning you’ll have to make do with my cooking, or else starve, I guess.” If it’s a joke, it’s missing the appropriate tone, Roman watching her move around the kitchen. Sharp movements, like the way she moves around the office, a certain economy to her gestures, as if the slightest delay could derail her work day. 

“Gerri,” he says gently. Takes in the set of her shoulders. Stiff, like she’s on high alert. 

“Yeah?” 

She freezes when he hugs her from behind, wraps his arms around her midsection. But then he kisses the back of her neck, feels some of the tension go out of her body, her back relaxing into him. 

“Thank you for bringing me here,” he says into her skin. Presses his lips into her hairline, the border of baby hairs that tend curl up at the end of the day. Kisses her hair and skin over and over, until she’s sighing, arms reaching back to grab his hips. 

“You didn’t pack much,” she says, sounding casual in a way he knows not to believe. 

“I crammed an entire weekend work of shit into the tiniest bag I could manage,” he admits. “Didn’t want to look like an idiot if you wanted me to leave tomorrow.” 

He kisses up the side of her neck, feels her stretch and twist to give him greater access, but then his hands are under the loose fitting top she’s wearing and he feels her groan, surprising him when she spins around, directing his mouth to hers with a firm hand. 

“I have to pee,” he realizes, pulling back after they’ve been making out for a few minutes. 

“Just down the hall,” she directs him, leaning against the counter with a smile. He kisses her again for good measure, practically skipping down the hall, knew all along that water he chugged would be a mistake. 

She’s not in the kitchen when he comes back out, finds her in the living room, scrutinizing something on the mantel. 

“There was a vase here,” she says, maybe more to herself than him. 

“Maybe the cleaning service broke it?” 

“Huh,” she says, glaring at the mantel now, and he remembers that time she called him, bitching about her cordial glasses or whatever the fuck. Starts to crack to up. “What’s so funny?” 

He giggles so hard he can’t get the words out, Gerri staring at him in disbelief. When it looks like she’s worked herself up to a healthy snit, he comes over and kisses her. Pulls her body flush against his, hands snaking under her top again. 

He walks them back to the couch, his knee catching against the coffee table as he slides her long skirt off, feels it pool around their feet before she kicks it away. 

“There are four perfectly good bedrooms upstairs,” she complains when he pushes her down on the couch.

“But we do some of her best work on couches,” he says, pulling off her blouse. Feels her fingers working at the buttons of his jeans. 

“Fuck,” she gasps because isn’t wearing briefs today, thought it would save him the anxious, eternal minute of taking them off. Feels her hands pulling at the denim while he fights with the clasp of her bra, then pushes her farther back, laying her flat, her fingers grabbing at his bare hip. 

“You breasts are fucking amazing,” he mumbles against her chest. Doesn’t know why he’s never included that in his nightly sign off. They’re the perfect size in his hands and in his mouth, so pale against whatever color she drapes them in. 

Her panties are black lace today, vaguely matching the bra he just stripped off her, and he feels her shimmying them down as he sucks on her breasts, bites gently at a nipple when she starts to squirm. Kisses down her stomach and then across her thighs, his body shifting quickly over hers. 

“That isn’t - you don’t have to -” she’s saying as his mouth makes contact, but then the words stutter in her throat, cut off by a breathy moan. 

He used to be good at this, he thinks he used to be good at this anyway, but she looks so different from Grace, her pubic hair is so soft and fine, and he runs through all the motions he knows how to do until he finds a thing that makes her back arch off the couch. Does that over and over with his tongue until she’s pulling his hair, her foot coming up to press firm and hard into his dick, making him grunt against her clit. 

He’s out of practice, his jaw hurting after only a few minutes, but he remembers how she touched herself, so he replaces his mouth with his fingers. Studiously replicates the motions he saw on his couch. 

“Rome,” she begs, tugging on his shoulder, and he slides up her body, fingers still working against her. Kisses her so hard he can’t breathe, Gerri sucking his tongue into her mouth as she grinds against his hand. 

“I’ll do this all weekend if you let me,” he promises against her mouth, feels fucking desperate to make good on it, and then her hand is wrapping around his dick, fingers moving up and down, and he drops his head to her neck. “Fuck, Gerri. Fuck, _fuck._ ” 

He must have been leaking already because her fingers are slick against him, warm and wet and so fucking certain as she touches him, and it isn’t long before he goes off like a cherry bomb, coming across her palm. But he doesn’t have time to think about the embarrassment of that, already pulling away, feeling half drunk as he bends down again, adding his mouth to his fingers, licking inside her until she lets out a short whine, thighs shaking. 

She comes with a curse this time, her fingers grasping at his shoulder, nails digging in, and he keeps his face pressed against her. Blows softly on her slick, pink flesh until he feels her shiver. 

“At some point we should really make it to a bed,” she sighs. But she sounds dreamy and far away, his damp face pressed against her dimpled thigh. His body boneless, mind blissfully blank. 

. . . 

Kendall texts him while they’re eating dinner and Roman stares at the message about Argestes bullshit, grumbling before he goes back to his plate. 

“Are you really staying the whole weekend?” Gerri asks, handing him another takeout container. He catches a glimpse of a red mark next to her collarbone, right where her robe opens.

“Twas my abiding hope,” he pitches his voice, shoveling more food onto his plate. “But I don’t want to crowd you.” 

“I could make do with a little crowding,” she says, watching him in a way that’s vaguely predatory. “But you’ll probably need to send out for some warmer clothes. I doubt your usual brand of billionaire urchin ware will do.” 

“Does the Hudson Valley come with a dress code?” he teases. 

“No,” she says, mouth tugging up on one side. “Only a little common sense. But I’m sure we can buy you some of that, too.” 

She clearly has someone in to clean, keep the house up in her long absences, so he’s surprised when she goes about doing the dishes after dinner. He doesn’t want to be an asshole, does his best to help her load the dishwasher, no matter that she just rearranges everything after he puts it in. 

“Hey, rabbit,” he answers his phone when she calls. “You get to see your horses yet?” He puts the call on speaker so Gerri can hear her, watches her smile and push the dishwasher closed, her hip cocked against the counter as she listens to him yammering away with his kid. “Don’t forget to tell them thank you.”

“She’s a polite kid,” Gerri says after he’s hung up. 

“Hard to counteract all the bullshit,” he shrugs. Remembers what he was thinking earlier, staring at that photo of family. “How old were you when you had Claire?” 

“Twenty-seven,” she says. Pushes a button on the dishwasher, the cycle starting with a beep and then a low, steady rush of water. “Everyone kept reminding me that I was getting old and better get on with it.” He feels his eyes go wide and she smiles in a way that doesn’t exactly convey happiness. “It was a different time.” 

“I was scared shitless when we had Isla,” he blurts. 

“I remember,” she chuckles. 

“That obvious?” 

“It was obvious you didn’t want to screw up. And knowing your family as I did, I knew you had no real model for that. But I wonder whether anyone - Well. . .” She clears her throat, looking uncomfortable as she shifts her gaze to the empty sink, and he feels desperately curious now. 

“You wondered what?” he prods. 

“Grace is gone,” she says. “It’s not a fair thing to say.” 

“You wondered what,” he repeats, softer now. 

“I wondered if anyone had the sense to point out to you that you could be a good father to the child and still not marry her mother.” 

“Ah,” he says, slumping against the counter, and she immediately looks apologetic. “You know, the weird thing is that I kind of miss the fights. I mean, like, I fucking hated the arguments, dreaded coming home when I knew she was mad about something. But it’s still a thing I missed after she died?” 

“It’s complicated,” she allows. Moves to wipe off the counter again, no matter that it’s already spotless. 

He pulls the towel out of her hand, tossing it into the sink before he presses her into the counter, kissing her gently, hands fisted into the silk of her robe. 

“I’m not having sex with you in this kitchen,” she warns, his mouth and hands starting to wander. 

“Not tonight you aren’t,” he agrees. Bites at her bottom lip. 

“Not tonight or any night,” she says pointedly, but then he presses into her, his erection evident through the thin gym shorts he’s wearing. Hears her gasp against his ear.

“Wanna bet on it?” he asks as he buries his face in her shoulder. Pauses, teeth grazing through the silk. “Loser gets to come as many times as she likes?” 

“Bedroom,” she whispers, one hand squeezing his ass, and when he goes to kiss her again, she holds him firmly by the hips, pushing him back. Stares at him in a way that makes his blood sing, skin tingling. “Bedroom, now.” 

He nods, doesn’t trust himself to speak as she leads him by the hand, the old wooden stairs creaking under their feet. 

. . . 


	11. Chapter 11

The bedroom she leads him into is yellow. Not a scary, in-your-face yellow, but still yellow, his least favorite color because it makes him low-key anxious. 

There’s a quilt on the bed that looks old and kind of scratchy, and he doesn’t know why he didn’t have them do this before, back at his house, a natural extension of all the other things they’ve done, the ways they’ve touched each other. Thinks it would have been easier on the couch downstairs earlier, already in the thick of it, the terrified part of his brain temporarily radio silent. 

“This room doesn’t look like you,” he says. Probably a stupid thing to say, but then she’s kissing him, her hands on his chest, and his mind starts to spin out at a lower speed when she pulls back. “I haven’t - Since Grace, I haven’t -” 

“I know,” she says, kissing his cheek. “It’s just another room. We only do what we want while we’re in it, hm?” He hates that he’s so scared - that she knows he’s so fucking scared, but she’s gentle and not all demanding in her touches, her arms loose around his neck. “Will you touch me?” 

He nods at that, doesn’t have to think about the answer or whether he wants to, his hands shaky as they pull apart her robe, fingers splaying across her abdomen and then sliding up to her breast. Kisses her throat when her head tips back, his teeth scraping across muscle and sinew as she sighs, drops her robe to the floor after a few minutes of them doing little else but kiss. 

He pulls back, only has it in him to stare at her for a moment, eyes greedy for the open expanse of pale skin.

“How lucky am I?” He doesn’t realize he’s saying it out loud until she’s arching a quizzical eyebrow, her face unreadable now. “Thought about you like this so many fucking times.” 

She smiles at that, closing the space between them again, hands in his hair when she kisses him, but now it’s mostly tongue and teeth, Roman groaning into her mouth, reaching down to cup her, his thumb idly slipping around.

“Oh,” she says, so quietly he barely hears it. Thinks about that time against the door in the study and all those nights before, on the couch. The times he fell asleep alone in his bed and thought about exactly this. Like this is a dream he’s managed to magic up out of thin fucking air. 

“I want you,” he promises. Trails sloppy, open-mouthed kisses across her shoulder, the freckles she hides away because they’re too perfect - they’re too fucking perfect, and if anyone else saw them, they’d just follow her around all the time. Hound her relentlessly, the way he already does. 

“I want you, too,” she urges, and he pushes her backward, dropping his shorts. Kicks them away with a spastic motion she tracks with dark eyes as gets onto the bed. 

He thinks maybe they should talk about condoms, it feels rude and presumptive to not at least offer to wear a condom, but then they’re lying down and he’s hard and against her, and all rational thought flies out of his mind. 

“On top of me,” he says, pulling her as he rolls over, hears her grunt with surprise, nails digging into his chest. He sits up against the headboard, lap wide open to make room for her as she haltingly gets on her knees, the movement a little jerky, less than fluid when she swings a leg over him, tongue darting out to wet her lips. “Is this okay?” She nods but doesn’t meet his eyes, leans into his hand when he reaches to cup her face.

There’s something akin to a grimace when she first slides down on him, her mouth in a tight line, but he holds completely still, allowing her to settle, runs this thumb across her mouth until she sucks it in, biting down on the nail. 

There’s a flush that starts at her neck and spreads down her chest, and he follows it with his hand, chases the color down to the valley between her breasts and then lower, to her faded C-section scar. Touches the skin so reverently because he never thought he’d get this, not really, not outside the deep recesses of his fucked up mind. 

“You’re so beautiful,” he says, the filter between his brain and his mouth no longer working, just repeating the things she’s already heard from him so many times before. “How is it possible for a person to be so beautiful?” 

She leans forward, burying her face in his neck when her hips start to move, and it feels amazing, out of this world amazing, but he already came a few hours ago, the pressure in his dick less all encompassing now, and he thinks maybe it’s his turn to be brave. Reaches around to cup her ass, guide her movement when her tempo seems off.

“I tried to stop,” he says, her hair falling into his face. “I tried to stop, but you’re too much. Too good. I always need more of you.” She whimpers a little at that and he bites at her shoulder, feels the way she gasps, her hips speeding up. “Is this what you wanted? All those nights you left my house, cool and composed as you fucking please?” He bites her again, harder this time. “Was it, Geraldine?” 

She pulls back enough to kiss him, her mouth open against his, teeth and tongue and saliva as she grinds down on him, his fingers digging into her hips as she speeds up more, changes the angle, maybe trying to hit her clit. 

“Fuck me,” he begs a few minutes later, hears her moan at that. Feels her gripping all the way down his dick, and he bucks up, can’t help it. Does it again when he feels her get wetter, a series of soft, breathy sounds leaking out of her mouth when she presses her forehead to his. 

He feels her hips stutter, lose their rhythm, but he keeps them moving with the push and pull of his hands, her breasts rolling against him like something out of the perviest of his adolescent fantasies. 

“ _Roman_.” The word is sharp, her body going rigid in his lap. Clenches around him in a way that makes flashes go off behind his eyes, arms wrapping around her because he thinks he’s fucking dissolving, ripping apart at some subatomic level he doesn’t understand because he was always an intellectually lazy piece of shit. 

He’s drenched in sweat when they finally still. His own but probably hers too, and it doesn’t even bother him, no matter that he always resented the messier, smellier parts of sex. 

“I was really worried you’d be bad at that,” she says eventually, tacky forehead pressed to his shoulder. 

He doesn’t realize he’s laughing until she joins in, the vibration of it running down her body, all the way to where they're still connected.

“Yeah,” he chuckles, fingers winding into her hair, one arm still wrapped around her, holding her close. “Yeah, me fucking too.” 

. . . 

It turns out the yellow bedroom is not the master, and she leads him down the hall, into a bigger one that’s painted in multiple shades of gray.

“We’re too old to sleep in sweaty sheets,” she says. Her only explanation. “That’s the master bathroom but there’s another down the hall and then the one downstairs.”

“I’ll use the one down the hall,” he volunteers. Because no relationship has ever been improved by sharing a bathroom, even temporarily. 

“Good man,” she says immediately. And then, “I think I’m going to shower.” 

He will too, but maybe when she’s done. Goes downstairs to bring their bags up, check his emails. He sees a series of long, bitchy texts from Shiv, but he ignores those, responds instead to something from Tabitha. Tells her he’s out of town.

 _Out of town alone?_ she asks, and he sends her back a middle finger. Knows she’ll understand that’s a no.

Gerri isn’t out by the time he’s finished doing everything, hopes he’s not wrong to assume he’s bunking down with her. But he’s feeling braver now, leaves his bags in her room and goes back downstairs, poking around until he finds the booze. Comes back up with a decent bottle of scotch and a single glass, pours enough for both of them to share.

He’s sprawled out on the bed, hair wet from his own quick shower, laptop open, when she finally comes out of the bathroom, a different robe on and her hair wrapped up in a towel. 

“Your suitcase is by the door,” he smiles over his computer. Watches as she pads over, unzipping it, shoulders hunched over as she searches through. 

He tries to look away when he sees the pill bottle, afford her that tiny bit of privacy, but she comes over to the bedside table and picks up his glass of scotch. Uses it to chase the little white pill, his eyes glancing back to his laptop screen.

“You might as well ask,” she says. Doesn’t sound thrilled.

“You don’t have to tell me,” he replies. Certainly isn’t going to pick a fight when they’re winding down for the night, her chest still splotched red in places from his mouth.

“It’s blood pressure medicine.”

“High or low?” He manages to look at her here.

“High,” she sighs. Already sounds bored of the conversation. “It went up when I was on estrogen, but I’m already off that and it hasn’t come back down. So, pills it is.”

“Okay,” he says carefully. 

“Roman, it’s a minor thing. It doesn’t affect how I do my job.”

“What?” He makes a face because that’s a weird fucking thing to say here. 

“Well I’m sure it’s where your mind went,” she says. Fucks with the tie of her robe, not looking at him now. 

“Yeah,” he says flippantly. “The woman I want to talk to before I fall asleep apparently has high blood pressure, but you got me. I’m thinking about fucking Waystar.”

“I didn’t mean it like that,” she defends. Picks up the scotch again, getting a third of it down in one motion.

“Gerri,” he says. Pushes his laptop off his lap in a slow, deliberate way. Gets up, leaning on his knees. “What do you think this is?”

“I don’t know,” she shakes her head. “I thought this weekend would be our chance to define it, maybe give it a name.” She sounds a little lost here, all of the certainty he associates with her absent. Turns around, pulling the towel off her head, running it through her hair before she slips back into the bathroom, the sound of a hair dryer droning to life. 

She comes back out with hair that’s wavy, not as controlled as the style she favors during the week, and he pecks away at an email while she moves around the bedroom, putting away things from her suitcase until it’s empty, tucked away in a closet, Gerri looking at him with her arms crossed.

“Did you want me to sleep in another bedroom?” he asks, isn’t sure what to expect now. 

“No,” she says immediately. “Roman, no.” She crawls over the bed until she’s in his lap, not so different than their positions earlier. “I want you right here, where I can see you. The rest we can hash out tomorrow.”

“I don’t want to find out from Eva you had a doctor’s appointment,” he says after a moment, hands resting on her hips. “We can sort all the other shit out later, but I don’t - I want to be the person you tell things to.” She looks like she’s going to say something to that but she doesn’t, staring down at him before she nods.

“I know it’s only ten o’clock,” she says, “but would you find it horribly boring if we just went to sleep?”

“Fuck no,” he replies. Feels relieved down to his bones. 

“Thank God,” she says. Slumps over, head on his shoulder.

He thinks she’ll pass right out when they get in bed and turn out the light, but instead she talks to him, tells him funny things from work he didn’t hear about and then a few stories about when she bought the house. 

“When did you remodel the kitchen?” he asks. He’s been running his fingers over her body, both of them naked under the blankets. Swirls his thumb around her nipple now and then down her side, over the ridge of her hip bone as she answers.

“Again?” she asks with a giggle when he absentmindedly ventures lower. But he wasn’t trying to start anything and there’s no way he has another orgasm in him, no matter that he’s apparently half hard now.

“I just like touching you,” he says tiredly. “I promise to be a good boy. No soiling madam’s sheets.” Only she’s spreading her legs for him now, encouraging his wandering fingers, and soon enough she’s tugging on his arm, prodding him until he rolls on top of her.

“I’ve been known to make an exception or two for you,” she says waspishly, and it’s the perfect invitation to slide inside of her, wipe some of that smugness away.

“Do tell,” he says, mouth open and pressed to her throat. Sets up a slow pace because he has no idea if his erection will even hang around. He’s pretty sure he was twenty-five and had MMDA in his system the last time he even tried for three rounds.

“Swore I’d never fuck my boss again, for one,” she husks, nails scratching lightly down his back. “Not after I ended up marrying the last one.”

“Should have tried to fuck you in Japan.” He feels her hips cant up at that, her legs spreading wider as he pushes in. “Dropped to my knees. Offered to eat you out while you were busy bitching away at me.”

“I would have slapped you in the face.”

“Liar,” he grunts before he kisses her mouth, their bodies moving in tandem, the world’s slowest moving wave.

“Oh god,” she groans when he eventually shifts, the angle changing, wet skin continually sliding against wet skin. “God, did you take a pill or something when I wasn’t looking?”

“You are the pill,” he mumbles, mouth pressed against her chest. Lips gently tracing the places he marked her earlier. “We might never sleep again if you keep coming to bed nude.”

She bites his earlobe and he speeds up, his arms bracketing her head. Doesn’t know what he has left in him; is willing to empty every bit out for her, here, in the dark.

. . . 

“Do you share Isla’s aversion to eggs, or is that only a rabbit thing?”

“Scrambled eggs are a no-go,” he replies, topping off his coffee. “Everything else is fine.”

He thought this morning might be awkward, but he woke up with her still cuddled against him, got out of the shower to find a cup of steaming coffee waiting for him on the bathroom counter. And now she’s making him breakfast.

“Will you grab the plates?”

She’s in jeans and a sweater, the cable knit thick in his hands when he hugs her, hands winding around her. 

“I didn’t realize this was a full service establishment,” he says, chin on her shoulder.

“You did plenty of servicing yesterday,” she says, a tilt to her voice. “A few country eggs for a few orgasms seems like an excellent trade.” 

“Well now I think I’m being taken advantage of, me and my giving nature.” The laugh he gets for that is low and throaty, makes him smile. 

They both have to do a few hours of work, put out fires, respond to people who need things. But they camp out in the sun room, her feet ending up in his lap, and when he finds that bullshit crystal from yesterday in his laptop bag, he can’t help tossing it in her lap along with a snide explanation about Grace's parents. Enjoys her smirk as she thunks the crystal down on a side table with no small amount of disgust.

“What?” she asks when he smiles at his phone, his hand on her ankle as he texts Tabitha.

“Tabitha,” he says. Chuckles as another text comes through. “One of her idiot clients.”

“It’s a little late to ask this, but I didn’t cockblock that poor girl, did I?”

It takes a moment to recover from hearing her say ‘cockblock’, but then he’s puzzling out what she means, eyebrows knitting together as he looks at her.

“You mean me?”

“Yeah, you,” she says, voice light as she types away on her laptop, glasses sliding down her nose. “The two of you went on an actual date once, didn’t you?”

“A fucking horrible one,” he says. “You don’t think I’d - I mean, you know I wouldn’t be here, with you, if she and I were-“

“Calm down,” she laughs. “I’m not accusing you of anything. Can’t say I understand the peculiar nature of your friendship, but it’s obvious that’s all that it is now.”

He isn’t sure now that he understands what she was asking, given the last statement. Can’t decide how he feels about the fact that she doesn’t even sound jealous, just amused, maybe a little curious. 

“She knows I’m out of town. Not alone.” That earns him a raised eyebrow. “We didn’t talk in terms of a name, but she knows there’s only one person I’d want to spend my weekend with, other than Isla.”

He shrugs, reaches for his coffee cup for something to do. Tries to wait her out, force her to make the next move.

“We should probably talk about what this is,” she says. Sounds solemn as fuck.

“What do you want it to be?” he asks flippantly, can’t bring himself to look at her. 

“I’m being serious,” she says, clearly annoyed now, and Roman slumps down into the couch. Pulls her foot back into his lap, fingers nervously kneading into her arch. 

“I like waking up to you,” he says, sounding defensive. “I like hearing your voice at the end of the day and first thing when I open my eyes.”

“Waystar doesn’t have a disclosure clause,” she says. Basically ignores his last statement, as far he can tell. “We should change that when you’re CEO, but for now it’s advantageous.”

“What if it’s not me,” he says. “What if it’s you?”

“You raised that point before,” she rolls her eyes.

“I meant it before,” he argues. “You blew me off. So I’m saying it again. What if it’s you?”

She sits up a little straighter, pulls her foot off his lap.

“You’re serious?” 

“No,” he huffs, gesturing animatedly. “I haphazardly offer the reins of my family's company to all the women I sleep with.” He throws his phone down on the couch. “Yes, I’m serious, Jesus fucking Christ.”

“There’d be way too much push back,” she shakes her head. “You’re the easier sell.”

“Less qualified assholes always are,” he says. “Aren’t you sick of that shit? Like, three fucking decades of cleaning up after idiot men who shoot from their dick when you’re the smartest one, always twenty plays ahead?”

“You aren’t an idiot.”

“Kinda dodging the issue there, Geraldine.”

“Don’t use that name and no, I’m merely confused as to what we’re talking about now because you can never stay on fucking topic.”

“A bad trait in a CEO,” he drawls, just to be a dick. “Do you really not want it?”

“Of course I do,” she snaps, voice rising a little. “But I’m not a man and I wasn’t gifted a last name that’s a master key to every lock in the fucking county, and now, _now,_ I’m romantically involved with the COO, who happens to be twenty years my junior, and disclosing that could be fatal to my career.”

He doesn’t know what to do with that or how to process her anger. A minute ago it sounded like she was saying they could go public after they drop Kendall’s dead weight, but now she’s making it sound like he’s a liability that’s just managed to slither into her life. 

He gets off the couch, takes his empty cup with him into the kitchen. The breakfast dishes are still soaking in the sink and he starts to load them into the dishwasher, recreates the pattern he saw the night before, big shit in the back of the bottom rack, cups on the outer ring of the top one. 

“What are you doing?” she asks, coming into the kitchen a few minutes late. Seems calmer now. 

“What does it look like I’m doing,” he says. Starts the cycle with an angry stab of his finger. Looks around for a towel to wipe around the stove. 

“It needs to be you,” she says. “I know you don’t want it, but it needs to be you we sell as your brother’s replacement.”

“Okay,” he says. Scrubs at a dried bit of grease that’s proving stubborn.

“A female CEO having a relationship with an underling is a non-starter, I wouldn’t stand a chance.” He hears her shifting behind him, socks soft against the tile. “But a male CEO taking up with one - someone who’s already proven competent. I don’t know that it’s that hard of a sell, given our corporate culture.”

“Oh?”

“We’re nothing at Waystar Royco if not merrily incestuous.” He hears the timber of her voice change, the words tinged with humor and a silkiness it’s impossible to steel himself against. Feels his resolve slipping away when she tugs on his arm, slides a hand around his neck.

“It’s not just that I don’t want it,” he breathes out. “It’s that it should be you.”

She traces his mouth an index finger, her eyes tracking the movement rather than meeting his. Pauses at the tiny scar just below his lip, the one he got from wrestling with Shiv, used to steal Grace’s concealer to hide. 

“Life isn’t fair,” she sighs, “and I can’t have everything I want. But I’d like to keep the job I have, the one I’m exceptionally good at, and I’d like to keep you, too.”

They kiss for a long time in the kitchen, his hands slow to wander because he’s noticed she’s been moving carefully this morning, settling into chairs more gingerly than normal. 

“Sore today?” he asks, when she starts sighing in a way that would normally warrant an escalation.

“A little,” she admits. Tucks her face into his neck. 

“Then I’ll have to be very careful in my attentions today.”

It’s tempting to laugh at the fact that she remembers right where her vibrators are hiding, tucked away in the recesses of the bedroom closet. But laughter would make him shut down if the situation were reversed, so he paints on his best poker face as she zeroes in on the box on the back shelf. Peels her out of clothes as slowly as possible, pausing to kiss her after every discarded garment.

He feels like he hasn’t clocked enough time with her bare breasts, no matter that his mouth was continuously attached to them for about an hour last night. Waits until she’s groaning, relaxed and obviously ready for more, before he reaches for the vibrator.

“Show me?” he asks, and when she hesitates he catches a nipple with his teeth. Manipulates it in a way that makes her curse, arching her breast farther into his mouth. He lets it go with an audible pop. “Show me,” he says softly. 

Her face is amazing. Her face is always amazing, but he has the time and presence of mind to take it in now, watch her expression change as pleasure ripples through, his face leaned over hers, weight propped up on his elbow. 

“Think about me when you do this at home?” he asks. Cups a breast in his hand. 

“Maybe,” she says, the ghost of a smirk appearing before it’s chased away by a gasp, his hand moving down her stomach toward her pelvis, fingers splaying out just above where the hair starts. 

“I always think about you in the shower,” he admits, not a trace of self-consciousness to be had. “For a while it was just your voice. The smell of your skin.”

“Rome.” It’s a whine when she says his name, and reaches down, takes hold of the vibrator. Doesn’t want to be a mere spectator anymore.

She comes twice, gasping the second time, laughs that she doesn’t have another one in her, but she’s so wet now, the whole room smells like sex, and he’s always liked a puzzle.

She makes a little mewling noise when he laps at her and he waits before tentatively slipping his tongue inside her, no discomfort incurred at that, given the way she’s pushing against his mouth. She actually shouts when he adds the vibrator and it’s such a turn on, he doesn’t even mind that his tongue is going weirdly numb from the proximity to the vibration. 

“Enough,” she says, pushing his head and hand away. He can’t tell if she came again, thinks maybe she did, given the small choked sound she made. 

She’s making vague noises about reciprocating but she looks so strung out, a puddle of pliant flesh splayed out across the gray of the sheets, he doesn’t want her to have to move. Tucks her in his arms and kisses her forehead. 

“I’m fine for now,” he promises. Holds her tighter when she mumbles a retort.

“We should actually go into town,” she says at some point. Sounds fully conscious again. “No one will even pay attention to you.”

“My life from age eleven on,” he sighs. Isn’t against the idea, just wishes it didn’t involve leaving the bed.

“Are you one of those men who hates blow jobs?”

By the type he’s processed the question she’s levered herself up and is working at his pants, nimble fingers making short work of the buttons and zipper.

“I don’t hate them,” he says. Tries to find the words that’ll spare her feelings, skip the fight he always had with Grace. “They don’t usually get me off though.”

“One needn’t be afraid to change tactics,” she pronounces, hand wrapping around him, and his eyes slam shut. “If the need arises.”

Her mouth feels so good and her tongue is doing something altogether unholy, all the anxiety he has about disappointing her melts away.

“Jesus,” he pants, “Jesus, Gerri, please.” She’s basically just toying with him now, backing everything off, making him desperate for what she was doing a few minutes before. 

“Need it?” she asks, breath on the tip of his cock, and all he can do is whine, uselessly buck against empty air. 

He feels her getting up and he panics for a moment, assumes she’s giving up, but then her hands are on chest and she’s sliding down on him, and she’s so ungodly wet, he can’t even produce sound.

“Look at me,” she orders, and he opens his eyes in time to see her leaning down, the sensation getting exponentially better as she moves. 

Their eyes are open when they kiss, and it should be fucking creepy, it’s nothing he ever would have asked for, but it’s like she’s swallowing him whole and he wants to feel this forever, knows it’ll end any second.

“Come for me, honey,” she says, her voice so soft it wouldn’t cut through water.

When he says her name as he comes, it’s a plea and a deliverance and maybe a promise.

. . .

The town is fine, the kind of thing other people might call charming. They have an early dinner at a place he doesn’t hate, poke into shops where everyone says hello, no one greeting Gerri by name. He isn’t sure what he was expecting exactly, but it’s a small place and she’s owned a home here for decades, he assumed it might be creepy, sort of claustrophobic. 

He gets cold after an hour, Gerri smirking but choosing not to gloat. Takes him into a shop that sells knitting supplies, a few sweaters and shit on display. None of it is really his style but they look warm, soft to the touch. He let’s Gerri pick one out for him, watches her peruse various yarns.

“Do you knit?” he asks. Can’t manage to swallow down his incredulous laugh.

“Theoretically,” she says. “Sometimes, when I’m feeling really shitty or else strangely hopeful, I buy some yarn that’ll inevitably get shoved in a closet and forgotten.”

They buy two sweaters and three bundles of yarn (are they called bundles? spools? not bails, he knows, that’s only for hey and shit), and then she tugs him along.

“I can’t remember what time they close,” she frets about the candy store, but neither of them bother to look it up. 

The store’s obviously open, lights on, a couple people milling about, but Roman freezes outside the door, grabs Gerri by the arm. 

“Do you mind if we save it?”

“For tomorrow?” 

“For when Isla comes,” he says. Knows it’s weird, his kid isn’t even on the east coast today, but he likes doing things like this together, his excitement amplified by hers.

“Of course,” she says, eyes bright when she touches his hand. “Sure, let’s do this with the rabbit.”

He didn’t bring his phone with him, comes back to a missed call from Frank and another from Karolina. But there are no urgent emails from anyone and Gerri doesn’t have anything either, so he’s tempted to just leave it.

“They’d call back if he was important,” she says, doesn’t sound convincing. 

They go to bed early because they didn’t actually get to sleep early last night. He showers first, leaves out a glass of water on the bedside table where she keeps her pills. Sees her clock it when she comes out, no robe, only a towel.

“Clearly I should have been dating people who are doting and younger the whole time,” she says, screwing the pill bottle closed. 

“I feel like you’d do well with the young, sapphic crowd,” he grins. Watches her pretend to consider it.

“Think I have a shot with Tabitha?”

“Oh, fucking definitely.” He takes it as a badge of honor when she laughs.

It’s cold in the room, but she’s so warm, it isn’t long before he’s warm, too. He should probably ask if she’s comfortable like this because he’s basically attached himself to her like a succubus, but she doesn’t seem to mind if her sleepy sigh is anything to go by. 

“I don’t want to go back to real life,” he whispers. Tries not to think about his brother, or his sister, or the five million lies he has to keep straight, all of it so tangly and awful. 

“This is real life,” she replies. Adjusts her head on the pillow, bare legs sliding against his. “Real as we make it."

. . . 

He calls Frank back in the morning but gets only voicemail. Doesn’t think he has it in him to call Karolina until they’re back in the city. 

“What time does Isla touch down?”

“A little after four,” he says, checking his phone to confirm. Knows she’ll probably be wiped. “You want to come with me to pick her up?”

“Probably not wise,” she says after a long, thoughtful pause. “But yes, I would like to.”

“I guess we should be careful from here on out,” he ventures. Knows he was in for this talk anyway, doesn’t think it’s fair to make her be the bad guy.

“We have a fair amount of cover,” she says. “You’re friendly with everyone, people are always coming and going from your house, eating over. Plus the age difference. But yes, I think we’ve gotten a bit careless.” She sips her coffee with a neutral expression. “I’ve gotten a bit careless. Lost my head a little.”

He has mixed feelings about that statement, would feel better about it if he knew when they’ll be able to sleep in the same bed again. 

“Alright, so what does this look like from here on out?”

“Roughly the same as before,” she shrugs. “Minus the part where I stayed overnight once, as that’s impossible to explain away.”

“Okay,” he says. Doesn’t push back on that last part, no matter how much he wants to, knows she’s right.

“I was thinking,” she says, tone less ominous now. “Everyone’s worried about you getting burned out, so sometime soon I’ll offer to lend you the weekend house. Bring it up in front of people.”

“You mean announce to the Waysar masses that we’re spending cozy weekends together?” 

“No,” she says, an annoyance plain. “I’ll offer you the use of your house in my absence, toss it off casually. We’ll never bring it up again if he don’t have to, but it’s handy cover if we ever need it.”

“Could you manage Sunday’s up here?” he asks. Feels a cautious bloom of hope.

“Up Saturday night, back down Sunday should be doable most weeks,” she nods. Has clearly already thought about it.

They’re already packed, bags in the car, when he kisses her in the foyer. Means it to be a sweet, soft thing but it somehow turns desperate, his motions frantic as he touches her. 

“Wait, wait,” she pleads, no doubt trying to cool him down because they need to leave, they don’t have time for this.

He doesn’t question his luck when she maneuvers them back, against a wall, her hands already working at her skirt as he latches onto her neck, feels her wrench his mouth away from her skin as she shimmies onto a console table. 

She hisses when he enters her and he immediately starts to pull out, but then she grabs him by the ass, holding him in place.

“It’s good,” she urges. “Don’t stop, it’s good.” 

They’ve been gentle with each other so far, all things considered, but this time she yanks hard on his hair and claws at his back. She moans when he gives in, reaching up to fist her hair, pulling it taut, her neck exposed to his mouth. He lets out a grunt when she yanks his head away again, belatedly realizes she’s worried about him leaving a mark that’ll show, moves his mouth lower.

The table apparently isn’t bracketed to the wall because it’s making a thudding sound, teetering precariously under her ass, but he doesn’t care, cradles her weight when he speeds up, the physics changing. 

“There,” she says. Sounds so fucking needy. “Oh honey, please, right there.” 

If he were a better person he would be worried he’s about to fuck her right through the wall, but he isn’t and thankfully, he does not. 

“Shit,” he says when they’re done, Gerri standing on wobbly looking legs as he bends at the waist, hands braced on his thighs while he catches his breath.

“We don’t have time to shower,” she says. Sounds far too calm for someone who just creamed all over his dick, scratched him so hard she drew blood. “Let’s just get on with it.”

The drive is quiet, but not in a weird way. He finds out that her first preset is NPR, which surprises him not at all. Half an hour in, she cranks up the heat, reaches over to put a hand on his leg. 

They’re halfway home when Frank calls.

”Your brother fired me,” he says, and Roman freezes, makes him repeat the statement after a few seconds. “Your brother fired me, kiddo. I’m out.”

. . .

He’s reasonably certain he’s not going to swing on his brother when he sees him. 

It took a night of strategizing with Gerri and an hour of useless, self-absorbed apologizing to Frank over a shitty meal of greasy burgers at the house, but Roman is reasonably certain that when he sees his brother in a moment, he isn’t going to strike him across the jaw, make blood pour out of his face. 

“Did we have a meeting?” Ken asks, posturing the moment Roman walks in. Looks like complete dog shit, clearly fresh off a bender. 

“Guess I forgot to make one. Just like you forgot to run it past me when you fired Frank.”

“I don’t report to you,” Kendall says. “And I’m tired of dad’s dinosaur friends with their own agendas and their bullshit.”

“Pierce likes him,” he says flatly. “You think your girlfriend’s family is jizzing themselves over your firing the guy they found the most palatable? Probably send fucking Mayflower themed Christmas cards to?”

Kendall winces at that and Roman wants to double down, hit every nerve because that’s all his brother is anymore - a walking, talking ball of fucking exposed nerves, held together by a stream of questionable substances. 

“Were you high when you did it?” Kendall can’t look at him after he asks it, and Roman grabs him by the arm, feels him freeze up. “Were you _fucking high_ when you fired Frank?”

“I need to get it together before Argestes,” Ken chokes out, bluster dissolving the same way it always does. Looks like he’s about to cry. “I can’t go like this, I can’t -“ He let’s put a shuddering breath, voice cracking when he says. “I need a tuneup, get my head straight.”

“Yeah,” Roman says, dropping his arm. “All you need is five days of rehab and you’ll be solid. I mean that’ll buy you, what? Like a fucking day before you swan dive into a pile of coke?”

“I need you to cover for me. I can’t do this if you don’t cover for me.”

“Fine,” he says. Is already walking out of Ken’s office.

 _I didn’t kill him,_ he texts Gerri.

_I should be relieved, and yet. . ._

She brings up the Rhinebeck house later that day, in the conference room, people chatting about weekend plans, trying to fill the awkward silence where Frank would normally tell his dumb jokes. 

“That’s kind of you,” he replies. “If I didn’t believe you have a contract killer lying in wait for me there, I’d consider taking you up on it.”

“What does one even do in a place like Rhinebeck?” Eva asks idly, after the meeting breaks up. 

“Mm. Like, fucking knit?” He makes a weird sound to highlight his derision before he adds, “I don’t know, ask your boss.”

Kendall schedules rehab by the end of the day, everything on his calendar becomes Roman’s problem, in addition to Roman’s own problems, the burner phone in his pocket vibrating every few minutes with messages from the ever expanding murder circle. 

“Are you alive?” Gerri asks when she calls. 

“I’m breathing,” he says. Tries to decide on a joke but he still has his laptop open in bed, no matter that it’s well after midnight and he didn’t make it home for Isla’s bedtime. Goes with the thing that’s true. “I would feel better if you were next to me, but I’ll content myself with the sound of your voice.”

“Glad to hear the shine isn’t off my apple yet.”

“Never,” he says, and there’s a long pause at that, maybe her deciding what to say. 

“I told the housekeeper in Rhinebeck the house would be occupied this weekend.”

“Only five more days,” he sighs. Closes his eyes.

“No time at all.”

. . . 

  
  
  



	12. Chapter 12

Roman’s basically running on fumes in the run up to Argestes. 

He’s had maybe two good nights of sleep in the last two weeks, both of them Saturdays at Rhinebeck, and even one of those was broken by Isla turning up crying in the middle of the night. A nightmare coupled with waking up in a house she’s still not used to, Gerri soothing her as she pulled her into the bed, Roman rolling over to make room, face still shoved in his pillow as he blindly reached for his kid.

It’s been non-stop since they got home two nights ago and his eyes burn a little as he stares at his computer, his assistant poking her head into his office, reminding him of the time while he chugs a cup of lukewarm coffee. 

The conference room is already full when he slides in at the last moment, sees Karolina hand Gerri an envelope as he’s crossing to his usual chair. It’s small and light blue, clearly not a legal document, and he files his curiosity away. Will try to remember to ask Gerri about it later, probably tonight when she calls. 

“Sorry it’s belated,” he hears Karolina saying, and Gerri slides the envelope into her dossier as Roman sits down. He throws a smirk to Karolina, handing her his phone. Watches as she tries not to laugh at the ridiculous thing he’s cued up for her. “You’re a child.” 

“But consistent,” he says. Sighs as Kendall comes into the room, clearly amped up. Not the drugged out kind but the even more annoying, sober version. Probably listened to music in his office to pump himself, or whatever the fuck. 

Frank ferreted out from a few sources that Ken and Naomi were on the outs when he got fired over some bullshit Parks numbers, but then they got back together and now, apparently, they’re on the outs again. And none of them have any idea what’s going on with that Turkish money, whether it evaporated like the possibility of a Pierce acquisition, but that’s a problem for another day because they’re all about to spend four days in a ski lodge full of pretentious shitwads who hate them, are most certainly hoping they collectively trip and fall on a knife, right in front of a camera. 

Kendall goes through a bunch of items that are mostly verbal masturbation, the kind of thing he does when he’s rebounding and feels the need to peacock. It’s obnoxious and tedious, but Roman mostly resents the wasted time, almost looks forward to seeing his brother’s fucking panic when Shiv turns up at Argestes, rains on his parade. He tries not to think about the Frank stuff anymore because it only makes him mad and Gerri keeps reminding him the rage is counterproductive.

“Anything else?” Ken pivots to Roman, and he shakes his head, clicks his pen. Isn’t going to keep anyone in this room longer than he has to because he knows they all feel as fucking behind as he does. 

“Proxy roundup?” Eva asks him in the hall, Gerri right behind them, returning a phone call with a few clipped words. 

“Yeah,” Roman breathes out. “Alright, let’s get that out of the way.” 

They all go to Gerri’s office because it’s always quieter, not many people inserting themselves there without an appointment whereas people are forever in and out of Roman’s, treating it like a fucking train station. 

He pours Gerri some coffee because he can tell that she’s flagging and trying to hide it. When he hands her the cup she squeezes his fingers for a second, but then Roman tenses up and Gerri seems to realize where they are, who they are, and she quickly pulls away. Ducks her chin as she sits down behind her desk.

“What’s the last nose count?” he asks, trying to barrel on, and Eva gives him an update. It doesn’t look she noticed anything, probably didn’t even see the hand squeeze because her back was turned, head bent over her phone. 

He tries not to watch Gerri for the next hour, look for signs of panic as they weigh voting scenarios. She seems fine, calm and composed as ever, but he thinks about last week, that meeting with the two of them alone with Karolina , how he wanted to fix her necklace when he noticed the gold pendant had turned itself wrong-side-out, and he drums his fingers against his leg. Feels pulled in too many directions, stretched too thin. 

“That call is best left to Roman,” Gerri’s saying, but he missed the first part, didn’t catch who they’re talking about. He tries to cover it, say something bland here, but her eyes narrow in frustration and for all the differences, it feels like those first few months after his father was ousted. Desperately trying to climb an impossibly steep learning curve, never at home in Gerri’s estimations of him. 

She reaches for her phone and he’s sure it’s to email him whatever he’s missed, probably a name with a note, and as Eva files out of the office he hesitates, tries to catch Gerri’s eye, but she pointedly ignores him. Places another call to someone, her tone placating and insincere as she speaks. 

“You look like death warmed over,” Frank says when Roman drags home, Isla still up, watching a movie, and Roman’s not one bit surprised. 

“Please tell me she at least ate a vegetable,” he sighs, eyeing the mess in the family room. Doesn’t have it in him to tidy up like he normally does, doesn’t want to to leave for Lucia to deal with in the morning either. 

“We had two different vegetables,” Frank groans, getting up. “And only one fit about eating them.” 

“Thanks again,” Roman says, leaning against the doorframe. 

He gave Lydia a few days off in the lead up to Argestes, trying not to burn her out, and this is part of the temporary solution; Frank, fucking up his house and his furniture a couple times a week. 

“What else am I doing?” Frank asks, patting his shoulder as he moves by him. “Night, kiddo.” 

Isla’s so tired she goes right to sleep, doesn’t even throw a fit over the fact that Mr. Bugs is still gone, accidentally left behind on her bed in Rhinebeck, and Roman is relieved to skip the meltdown from last night. 

Gerri hasn’t called by the time he puts himself to bed, laptop closed but beside him on the bed, and it’s tempting to let it lie, give her the night off from his voice, but he’s lying in bed alone, remembering what it was like to wake up to Isla between them, Gerri’s fingers threaded in his hair, and before he knows it, he’s calling. Thinks it’s about to ring out to voicemail, chest tight after the seventh ring. 

“Hey,” she says and the word sounds croaky.

“You were asleep,” he says. Feels like shit now. 

“No,” she sighs. “Not yet, unfortunately.” 

They talk about odds and ends for a few minutes, Waystar bleeding into everything now, even their late night talks, but then he brings up the thing in her office, her squeezing his fingers, and he hears her take a hard pause. 

“I don’t think Eva noticed anything,” he says, still waiting on the precipice of her silence, can’t help filling it with his fucking words. 

“I don’t think so either,” she allows but sounds closed off. Careful. 

“Do we want to try for Rhinebeck after Argestes?” he asks. They’ll get back back Saturday and the timing could work, but he doesn’t want to assume, feels like he needs some kind of assurance right now. 

“I’d planned on it,” she hedges. “But if you think you’ll be too tired -” 

“No,” he cuts her off. “I’ll be fucking exhausted, but I want to be exhausted next to you. Peel Isla off the ceiling from all the candy she’ll eat Sunday.” 

“She still lobbying for a gumball machine in her room?” 

“Yeah,” he huffs. “And I blame that fucking store for it. She’d never seen a real one before, won’t let it go now.” 

“You all do get so attached to shiny things,” she retorts, the softness in her tone is giving way to something else, voice creeping lower. 

“You should have hung around yesterday,” he says. “Stayed after everyone left the house.” 

They had a huddle at the brownstone last night, everyone coordinating knives to point at Ken during Argestes. Well, everyone besides Shiv because it pays to keep her out of the loop as much as possible, only have her at the peripheries. The tentative plan is to move on Kendall after he publicly humiliates himself there, but the stint at rehab seems to have stuck and that makes it harder, in more ways than one. 

Roman always wants his brother to get it together, never entirely gives up the hope of it, but he knows it’ll never happen, that his Ken’s going to take everyone down with him this time, hope too costly a thing to encourage, even in the privacy of his own head. And now it competes with his anger over Frank, the echo of fear still reverberating around in his chest from when Gerri went off to DC.

“I know we’re usually the last ones standing,” Gerri replies, sounding torn here. “But I don’t want to court the additional scrutiny of my always staying later than everyone else. At the very least Cyd and the others might wonder if we’re making moves without them.” 

“We are,” he smirks. “It’s just that the moves involve my dick and sometimes one of your little vibrating friends.” 

“Roman, I’m tired,” she warns and it sounds like she means it. 

“I wasn’t angling for anything.” It’s not strictly true, he’ll always take what he can get when it comes to their special phone calls, but it’s only been two and a half days since he last slid into her, watched her bite her lip in the bathroom mirror, hands clenched against the counter as he kissed the back of her neck, whispered for her to be quiet. He can make it through to Saturday night. Might for angle for something fast and quick in Argestes. 

“Liar.” 

“I always want you,” he shrugs, no matter that he’s alone and she can’t see him. “Can’t help it.”

“You should sleep,” she says, sounding incredibly soft now. “Long day ahead of us tomorrow.” 

“Miss you,” he says. Decides on it after a pause, other words lodged in his throat, swallowed down before they can fly out, do damage. 

“I’m right here,” she says, and he can practically see the annoyed smile on her face. “Goodnight.”

. . .

Karolina changed some of the sound bites around for his panel, so he’s busily trying to memorize them on the jet when Kendall asks for him, one of the assistants hovering near Roman’s chair with his shitty, cheap cologne. 

“Right,” he grits, hefting himself up. When he gets to the front of the plane, Ken’s already huddled with Gerri and Karolina, everyone talking in low, clipped voices. 

Ken nods in his direction and Karolina hands Roman her phone, a preview of an article about Kendall’s last stint in rehab cued up on the screen. 

It was supposed to leak, but not for another two days, not until they were on the ground at Argestes, journalists everywhere, and Roman isn’t sure if someone screwed them or this is just Shiv getting impatient, doing her own fucking thing. 

“Can we have a minute,” Roman says, everyone moving to get up but Gerri.

“Kendall,” Gerri says. 

“Gerri,” Roman intones, putting some bite in the name. “I’d like a minute alone with my brother, please.”

She gets up after that, a glance thrown over her shoulder for good theater, and Roman watches Kendall work his jaw over and over again, obviously trying to hold it together because they’re on a jet over, like, fucking Kansas, and he’s trapped, two dozen sets of eyes only a partition away. 

“We’ll deny,” Kendall says, voice thin and thready.

“Did Naomi know?” Roman asks, and it’s a sucker punch he’d planned, rehearsed in his head, but it feels fucking horrible to land it, see pain and then panic bloom out on his brother’s face.

“I called her once,” Ken swallows. “It was on the fifth day and I was feeling good and I thought, um. . .“ His voice breaks and he turns away, face pointed toward the window. Nothing but boring, flat land as far Roman can see. “It was quick but she sounded happy for me? I don’t - I don’t know.”

“Karolina will take care of it,” Roman nods. “We just keep fucking moving, don’t give them anything to see.” 

“Pierce was a mistake,” Kendall says. “Something fucking dad would have pulled, I just thought - With Naomi, I just thought -”

“It’s done,” he dismisses. Feels worse for his brother opening up, talking to him like a human again. Not now, with everything that’s about to blow up under his feet. “We let Gerri and everyone clean shit up. Stay on message.”

“You used to be bad at this shit,” Ken says with a shaky laugh, and it’s not shitty or pointed or any of the usual. It’s just the two of them, sitting across from each other inside a metal box that somehow stays in the air. “When did I turn into the fuck up?”

“No one has to be the fuck up,” Roman says and then makes a weird noise. He hates that isn’t true. It just isn’t fucking true anymore. “Just keep to fucking club sodas, okay?”

He goes back to his seat without making eye contact with anyone, not even Gerri, and he can hear her strategizing with Karolina, their voices low, no doubt throwing out ideas they’ll quietly sabotage on the ground. He puts his headphones on, goes back to rehearsing lines about corporate responsibility and building trust. No longer wants the food that’s waiting for him, a flight attendant silently taking it away.

The rehab story goes live twenty minutes before they touchdown, and the timing of that is so on the nose, he’s sure that it was fucking Shiv. Has followed Gerri’s lead long enough by now to understand that no one in his family ever mastered subtly; his sister’s intelligence hides it a little better, but she’s still a sledgehammer coming down on a penny nail. It’s just that most of the time the nail is her own husband, so no one gives a flying fuck.

“Shit,” Karolina hisses, and Roman’s pretty sure that’s genuine. They had a timetable and now that timetable is fucked, and none of them brought their murder phones with them because Gerri and Frank both judged it too risky, too many people around, hotel doors that staff could be bribed to open.

“It’ll work out,” Gerri says, and she sounds so confident. He can’t help turning his face to find hers, holds her gaze as she nods at him. Just a quick, efficient motion before she goes back to talking with members of her staff. 

The opening mixer is painful and he truly hates shit like this, but there’s a lot of pressure on him to be charming and not an idiot, so he tries his best. Listens more than he talks. Pulls a face when some new media wank talks over a female exec from Google. 

“Sorry, I couldn’t hear you over BuzzFeed over there,” Roman smirks, and the asshat rushes to correct the name of his outlet but it’s too late, everyone’s laughing at him, the Google chick pressing on with her admittedly boring story. 

“Who knew you clean up so well,” Cyd comments later, and he pokes her a little over the fact that she has sunglasses on inside. “Fuck you,” she says, just as Gerri sits down at their table, is already armed with a drink.

“Nan Pierce pulled out,” Gerri says, sotto voice, and Cyd looks around. 

“That’s a polite thing to do,” Roman says. “So few people can be trusted to pull out anymore.”

Cyd guffaws at that, low and throaty, Gerri shaking her head as Karolina pulls up a chair, drink in one hand, phone in the other.

“Jarrell still showed up,” Cyd says. “What do you think that means? Trouble in liberal paradise?”

“Word is she’s looking for a soft landing,” Karolina says. “Won’t be at PGM after the first of the year.”

“Wonder what her game plan is now,” Gerri says idly. “No doubt Nan didn’t like her side-dealing with a Roy.”

“Got caught with her hand in the cookie jar?” Roman bats his eyelashes, Gerri giving him a displeased look that doesn’t reach her twinkling eyes. 

“She’s always sniffing around you,” Cyd comments, smirking at him in a way he doesn’t think he likes. “You should do a little flirting, see what she’s up to now that your brother left her high and dry.”

“Gross,” he pulls a face.

“Everyone at this table has had to flirt with far worse, and all in the name of Waystar,” Cyd pushes back. “Put your big boy panties on and charm the blond little goblin.”

“Uh,” Roman sputters, looking at Gerri, her unmoved expression. “Seriously?”

“She’s right,” Gerri says, sitting back in her chair, one finger tracing the rim of her martini glass with a soft, steady touch, which is kind of fucking cruel. “We’ve all done worse. Your turn to be the honeypot.”

The rest of the conversation is basically just the three of them tormenting him, Roman not bothering to fight back because he’s thinking about what they said, positions Logan fucking Roy put them in, and it turns his stomach, the scotch in his hand disappearing in a gulp.

“Be a good boy and get me another drink,” Cyd shakes her empty glass. “I have to go talk to your limp dick brother-in-law after this.”

“Me too,” Karolina says, not even looking up from her phone. 

“What about you?” he asks Gerri. Enjoys the way her eyebrow arches as she thinks about it because it’s the same expression she uses when she wants to steal away from Isla, make out for a few minutes in another room.

“No need of honeypot services at the moment, thank you.”

He chuckles at that, makes his way around the room until he spots Rhea. Nods to her as he collects a round of drinks from the wooden bartender standing behind the overly ornate bar.

“Don’t drink all of those,” Rhea says. “Some of us are rooting for a strong Waystar showing.” He fucking doubts that.

“Alcohol’s a performance enhancer,” he announces, innocently enough. Watches the way her lips curl up, no doubt watching him walk away. “That felt gross and I need a shower,” he announces to his table.

“You get used to it,” Karolina says. Shows them the pushback they’re already getting from the rehab denials, a pile of evidence to the contrary showing up in various feeds. 

“Like a lead balloon,” he pitches his voice and Karolina nods, doesn’t seem all that stressed anymore. 

There’s an entire evening to get through, Kendall awkward and cringy but still sober, obviously holding it together, and by the time Roman goes back to his room he’s dreading Shiv showing up in the morning, knows it’ll be a shitshow.

Gerri was flirty enough early that he has the vague, misplaced hope she’ll turn up at his door, but of course she doesn’t, even he knows that’s a horrible idea, and he has no good way to call her while they’re here. Won’t use his Waystar phone, doesn’t think it wise to trust the hotel one either. 

He falls asleep quickly but for the first time in months he dreams of Grace and metal crunching against metal, the sound of her voice saying ‘I love you’ threaded through dark, disjointed images he has to shower away in the morning, the sun not even up over the mountains.

. . .

“Gerri,” Shiv smiles in the morning, Roman watching it all play out from the periphery of the room. Kendall obviously panicking, Gerri and the others pretending to be surprised. He should watch it enfold, judge the next steps in the choreography, but he doesn’t have it in him. Finds a quiet terrace and sips his coffee. Calls his house to talk to Isla before she heads off to school. 

“Mr. Vernon has asked to take Isla out for dinner,” Lydia informs him after Isla scampers off, probably still needs to get her shoes on.

“That’s fine,” Roman says, and feels a little better for that. “Remind him no heavy food until thirty minutes after dance. Not unless he wants to wear it.”

Shiv joins in on Kendall’s panel because if she’s here and doesn’t speak, it’s a PR liability, the only female sibling not having a seat or a voice. It’s darkly funny when Roman thinks about it because Shiv would use anything, even someone’s dead body, as a podium. Wouldn't think twice about defiling the corpse with her very pointy shoes.

“I guess we have a difference of opinion on feminism,” Shiv says at one point, in response to Kendall. She’s twisting around what he’s said but it doesn’t matter, the sound bite will be her pithy response and half smirk, and after that Ken loses his groove, talking too much and getting repetitive while Roman watches from a back row. Takes a deep breath. 

“Who knew you were the smart one,” Rhea says. Somehow saddles up to him in a lounge, does that weird, flirty head tilt thing.

“That’s my shared genetic pool you’re insulting,” he says. Banters with her for a while, making himself sound as dumb as possible. 

“What you need is someone to balance out all that rockstar energy,” she says. Glances around because there are people in the distance. Shiv and Cyd. Maybe Tom and Gerri.

He laughs the comment off. Doesn’t let it land, refrains from shooting her down outright. Calls her a 'peppy fun-gun set to milf' before he breaks off, leaves her standing alone by a grouping of profoundly ugly couches. 

“You got a minute?” Shiv asks, Gerri at her side, Kendall nowhere in sight since that panel went sideways. 

“Yeah,” he says. “Sure.” 

They end up in Gerri’s room because it’s the closest, but the space already smells like her perfume, he can see her black jewelry organizer on a table, and it’s hard for him to focus entirely, not think about the way she holds her head when she pulls her earrings out one by one. Does it slowly, even when she’s naked and he’s waiting in bed, the wind rustling against the pane of the bedroom window in Rhinebeck. 

“Are you going to keep pushing the denial line about the rehab?” Shiv asks. Is already using that tone he hates, like she’s the smartest one in the room and the rest of them are peons who can’t be trusted to finish their homework. 

“Well we had a timetable worked out, but someone went and fucked it. Spewed their load too quickly.” Shiv pulls a face at that and Gerri doesn’t even react, just lets him be as gross and pointed as he wants because she has to be more careful. “I don’t know why you’re bothering to ask us what we need from you if you’re just going to make up your own shit anyway. I mean, really, why not bring your husband in next? I’m sure he won’t run right back to Ken for a gold star and a marginal promotion to yet another job that isn’t important enough for him to fuck up.” 

“Fuck off,” Shiv says. “You keep pulling punches and we have to take him out before the proxy vote gets moved again. Gerri?” 

“We are on a rather unrelenting timetable,” Gerri allows and Roman wheels around, can’t help feeling a little betrayed by that. 

“I’m not pulling punches,” he argues. “I’m trying to stick to what we all agreed on.” 

“Well, what we all agreed on also f assumed that Ken would be huffing lines again by now,” Shiv gestures with one hand, hair swinging as she moves. “But he’s not, so.” 

“Surely he won’t stay sober this entire time,” Gerri says, sounding hopeful in a way that bothers him. Eats away at him on a level he can’t process because it’s hard enough to be in a room that smells like her when he can’t even hold her hand until Saturday night, his kid on the other side of the country, his brother holding it together with bloody fingernails despite that they’re all trying to blow the ground out from under him. 

“I could have something dropped off in his room,” Shiv floats, chewing on the nail of her thumb now. “Brother’s little helper?”

Gerri hums here, looks like she doesn’t think it’s the worse idea, and Roman spins around, throws his hands in the air. 

“We are not,” he grits out, “I repeat, we are _not_ fucking _shoving_ our own brother off the wagon with a bag of drugs we bribe some bellhop to leave in his room.” He turns back around. “Jesus fucking Christ, what is _wrong_ with you?” 

Shiv let’s it go but doesn’t look particularly guilty or embarrassed, Gerri shrugging at him like maybe she’s sorry or maybe she’s just at loss, doesn’t know what to say under the circumstances. 

He drinks a little more than he should that night. Calls home between scotch number one and scotch number two to talk to his kid, listens to Frank going on about some rumored baseball trade Roman doesn’t know about and will forget exactly five seconds after he hangs up the phone. 

He let’s Rhea chat him up again after dinner but doesn’t idle long by her side, crosses the room when Ken shows up, clearly coked out of his mind, talking a mile a minute, and when Roman looks around for Shiv he only sees Wamsbgans, watches the fucking gutless weasel abruptly turn from his stare, hide his face. 

“Hey hey,” Roman says, a pit in his stomach. “Let’s get some air.” But Ken won’t go, will never leave a party when he’s like this, and pretty soon there’s people around, a couple obviously texting things out on their phones, maybe recording audio, and Roman backs off after that, knows better than to get caught in the middle, no matter that he fucking hates this. 

“Leaving so soon?” Rhea asks him, and he’s pretty certain it’s an invitation. Probably for a private conversation but maybe for more, and that feels gross too. He’s tired of lies and bullshit, all the things he’s been doing to save a company that’s only roller coasters and hate speech anyway. 

“I turn into a pumpkin at midnight,” he says, still holding it together enough to be charming. “Wouldn’t want you to see my true form.” 

She touches his arm and it reminds him of all the people before Grace, the nameless people he fucked or let fuck him because he was a Roy and that was all that they wanted. 

He’s already showered and in bed, complaining away to Tabitha via text when there’s a knock at his door. He hopes it’s Kendall but it’s probably Shiv, here to darken his door with her pretend guilt, the likes of which he’s been hearing since she was seven and blamed him for leaving the gate open in England, two of the horses getting out. 

“Hey,” he says when he opens the door for Gerri. She’s lost her blazer and looks dressed down, closes the door behind her while he just stands there, feeling worried. “Ken do something else after I left?”

She kisses him hard, her glasses digging into his face as her nails bite into his neck, and it feels amazing, she always feels amazing, but he thinks maybe there’s something wrong because isn’t sighing or making any of her usual sounds. She’s biting at his lip and scratching at his skin, using her body to bully him back, toward the bedroom, making annoyed noises when he stops in his tracks.

“What’s wrong?” he asks, hands pulling at her wrists, and she bites him hard here, tongue ramming into his mouth in a way that’s not entirely pleasant. 

It should set off alarm bells in his head, and on some level it does, but it also makes him hard in a nanosecond and he lets himself be pushed back to the bed, her fingers working at his belt. 

She isn’t interested in foreplay, yanks his hand away when he reaches to touch her clit, seems more than ready when she slides down on him.

“Fuck,” he gasps because she’s so hot and perfect and he just wants to stay still for a moment, savor what she feels like. But she isn’t patient, moving her hips immediately, riding him like she’s trying to set a record, make him come in under a minute. “Wait, wait. Fuck, Gerri, wait.”

He tries to grab her hips, slow her down, but she actively fights him, looks annoyed, even angry when he grabs her anyway, hampers her movements.

“Peppy fun-gun set to milf,” she hisses, grinding down on his dick, and he groans even as his face contorts in frustration.

“You’re mad that I followed your fucking directions?” he asks incredulously, moving to her push off, but then she’s kissing him and her tongue is perfect, domineering in a way he’s never experienced, and he wants an endless supply of it.

He gets frustrated when she bites him again, breaks the moment. He grumbles as he pivots, flipping her over, hands splayed on her ass she drops to her elbows, lets out a little whine that cuts through him as he presses against her.

He isn’t gentle. He doesn’t think she wants gentle right now and even she did, he doesn’t have gentleness in him to give. Slams into her in a way that makes a loud sound, skin slapping against skin, and she moans loudly after a few seconds of it, buries her face in the blanket as he grips her hips hard enough to bruise. He doesn’t stop when he comes, just doubles over onto her back, biting at the skin to the side of spine as thrusts his softening dick into her, feels her start to spasm and so bites her again, harder this time. Hears her shout something into the blanket, nothing that sounds like a word.

He rolls off her and over onto his side, eyes closed and an arm over his face. Could probably pass out this way if he were lucky, but his throat’s dry and Gerri’s still beside him and probably - probably, they should talk. 

“I don’t get jealous,” she says, sounding annoyed, and when he looks over she’s flipping onto her back, staring up at the ceiling. “My husband literally fucked around, and I didn’t get jealous. There’s no point.”

“I flirted with her because you told me to,” he says, but he’s softening now. Let’s the silence stretch before he rolls back over, body pressed against hers. “Do you recall that conversation?”

“I’m not saying it’s rational,” she says. She sounds angry but he doesn’t know who she’s mad at, isn’t sure she knows either.

“I think about you all the time,” he leans over, face hovering over hers before he kisses her once, twice. “I literally think about you all the time, and not just the sex.”

He kisses her again, long and slow. Thinks about what she said about Baird, the idea that someone was lucky enough to marry her but didn’t think she was enough, doesn’t know how that’s possible. 

How is that possible? 

“Rome,” she murmurs when he mouths at her chest. “I should go.”

He shakes his head against her skin, moves up, back to her mouth. Kisses her until he feels like she’s melting into the bed, her arms limp at her sides.

“I only wanna flirt with you,” he says. Waits until her eyes are open to say it, one of her hands coming up to cup his face. 

“Okay,” she says, and he kisses her again. Doesn’t think about anything but her taste and her skin, the way she sighs against him on sleepy Sunday mornings.

. . . 

The plane ride back to New York is somber, Waystar taking a beating in the press, an emergency board meeting in the works, and Roman should use the time to work but he’s so tired. He might just push off responding to emails, do it on the way to Rhinebeck. 

They’ll land around five, can probably get to the house before nine if he can have someone shove an early dinner in Isla. Lydia already packed Isla’s bag, so it’s only his own shit he needs to sort through, but that won’t take long and he’ll need to wait for Gerri to grab the car anyway. Tell Claire whatever it is she tells her. Assuming Claire’s even still staying at Gerri’s place because she hasn’t mentioned her in a couple weeks. Not after she took a call from the other one, Emily, on Sunday morning, excusing herself to the other room. 

“Did you do anything fun?” Karolina asks Gerri, and Roman pays attention here. Never noticed until recently how often the two of them are talking and nobody hears, their voices so soft and quiet.

“Nothing much,” Gerri says. “Uneventful day, which is a miracle in itself.”

“You need a spa day,” Karolina says. “Milestone birthdays are the perfect excuse.”

He doesn’t whip his head around at that, but it’s a near thing, and he makes himself open his laptop. Pretends to stare at the screen. 

“Only a milestone if you celebrate it,” Gerri sighs, clearly over the conversation, and Roman thinks back to that blue envelope, the one he never asked about because he has the memory of a fucking goldfish, forgot as soon as the next shiny thing floated by. 

He feels twitchy by the time the plane lands, doesn’t even have it in him to check in on Kendall, who sequestered himself for the entirety of the flight, no one in or out of his hidey hole. 

He could probably wait for Gerri when they deplane, angle to walk next to her, but he feels anxious, like seven coffees on an empty stomach anxious, and he doesn’t know what to say to her now. Knows he’s incapable of making idle chatter about the weather or Waystar bullshit when she went and turned sixty without even mentioning it. Probably had some boring, waspy party that she failed to mention, too.

He feels her waiting for him when they all get into cars, probably looking to coordinate pickup at the brownstone, but she can just text his Waystar phone. He hasn’t eaten and he should probably fix that, feels shaky and off in a way that isn’t just his head playing tricks on him. 

Isla practically flattens him when he gets in the door, still has her dance clothes on when he hugs her into his body. 

“Hi, kiddo,” Frank says, catching Roman off guard. He doesn’t think Lydia mentioned anything about Frank being around today, but maybe he got the day wrong when they talked. He was distracted the whole week, doesn’t remember half the conversations he had, so he probably fucked it, needs to warn Gerri before she comes over, usher Frank out without being an ungrateful asshole. “Rough coupla days?”

“I’ve definitely had better.” 

He got a couple things for Isla and a prototype phone thingamajig for Frank, something to help with the arthritis in his fingers he keeps complaining about but never does jack shit to help. 

_Frank’s here_ , he texts Gerri once he’s upstairs, throwing things from one bag into another. Hopefully she sees it but if not, it’s no big deal, not hard to play off her turning up at the house.

“This is great,” Frank says, Lydia heading out for the night with a silent wave goodbye. He’s already typing away on his phone with his new toy, probably trading insults with some idiot in New Jersey about fantasy baseball. 

“Glad you like it,” Roman replies and then yawns dramatically. Sends Isla off with a new doll to play in the back so she won’t start asking about Gerri or else when they’re leaving.

“Well thanks again,” Roman says leadingly, but Frank waves him off, still playing on his phone.

“You took off like a bat out of hell,” Gerri complains when she comes through the door. She’s clearly surprised to see Frank but smooths it over quickly, probably for the best that she came in sounding annoyed. 

“Gerri!” Isla shrieks, already streaking down the hallway. Doesn’t charge Gerri the way she does everyone else, but hugs her tightly all the same, one of Gerri’s hands resting on her head.

“Gerri,” Frank says, but sounds off. Holds himself stiffly here, like when Roman was back in Films, blowing off meetings just because they were boring. 

“Frank,” Gerri says, forcing a smile, Isla’s arms still around her. 

“Are we leaving now?” Isla asks, and Roman stays quiet, lets Gerri take the lead here because clearly she's better at hiding things than he is. 

“You’ll all be off in a few minutes, rabbit,” Frank says, and no matter the kindness in his voice he looks pissed, he and Gerri exchanging looks the likes of which Roman’s never fucking seen before. “The adults just need to have a little chat alone first.”

“Rome,” Gerri says, her face a blank slate. “Take Isla upstairs. I’d like a word with Frank.”

“I don’t think, uh. . .” Roman begins, his stomach bottoming out. 

“Do as the lady says, kiddo,” Frank interrupts, and it looks like he’s vibrating now, hands balled into fists. 

He shepherds Isla up the stairs, isn’t proud of the fact that he’s following orders without a fight. Feels gross that he feels the same way he did when his parents would fight, files that away, deep, deep in his brain because he doesn’t want to analyze how insanely fucked up that is.

He settles Isla in her room with a screen and some headphones, comes back out after a few minutes because he isn’t a child, he’s almost forty with his own kid and nightmares about a dead wife, and this conversation isn’t going to happen without him. Some kind of mute third party who doesn’t get a voice; fucking Wambsgans getting yanked around on a leash. 

He hesitates on the stairs because he can barely make out their voices, hears Frank say, “manipulative” and “agenda,” and he thinks for a minute he read it all wrong, that maybe this is something to do with Waystar and Ken. But then he hears Gerri’s voice rising, not quite a shout but getting close, Frank cutting through her voice with an angry, “Taking advantage of him!” and Roman’s charging down the stairs, taking them two at a time. 

“Hey,” Roman says, trying to break it up, sees Gerri’s arms crossed over herself as Frank rants away, and here Roman shouts, " _Enough.”_

“Kiddo,” Frank says, “You don’t understand.”

“I think you’ve got that backwards,” Roman replies. 

“Roman,” Gerri shakes her head, sounds shaky. 

“We didn’t plan this,” he defends. 

“ _One of you_ didn’t plan this,” Frank replies, and Roman sees Gerri wince at that.

“I’m going refrain from saying ‘fuck you’ here,” Roman says, feeling oddly calm now, like all those times his dad hit him, the pain blooming out across his face. “Because you’re basically family and usually in a non-shit way, but you aren’t going to do this. You aren’t going to come into my home and fucking insult her.”

“Rome,” Gerri says softly, and he doesn’t know when she moved but her hand is on his arm now, probably trying to reel him in.

“The late nights and all the Isla stories,” Frank shakes his head, sounding confused now. “I thought for sure it was just…” He stops, rubs his balding head. Laughs in a mirthless way that makes something rattle unpleasantly in Roman’s chest. “Fuck me, you actually love her.”

Roman doesn’t miss the Gerri freezes up at the word. Hates that if he says yes here it looks like posturing, another bullshit maneuver to be chosen, like placing a bet on a table. 

“And to think I’ve always considered you fucking oblivious,” he says with a smirk. Sees the way Gerri relaxes beside him at that, Frank sighing with all the disappointment of a Mets fan. 

“I’ll get out of your hair,” Frank says. “Leave you to your romantic weekend.”

“Dinner on Tuesday,” Roman reminds him and Frank pauses at that. Looks between him and Gerri. 

“Don’t look at me,” she shrugs. “I have a meeting.”

“Yeah, alright,” Frank allows. Gives them both one last shake of his head. “Be careful for fuck’s sake.”

“Fun,” Roman sighs once he’s gone, but Gerri ignores him, heading up the stairs. “It’s late,” he points out, trailing behind her. “Want to bail, try again next weekend?”

“Why?” she says, a level of exasperation to the word that feels uncalled for. But then she’s opening Isla’s door, telling her to go to the restroom before they leave.

The car ride is painfully quiet, Isla watching a movie in the back with her giant headphones on. It’s a good time for them to talk, hash out the Frank stuff, but it feels costly to break the silence and when they stop for gas, he gets out to pump it. Feels only halfway certain he’s doing right, won’t end up with gasoline all over his shoes. 

“Did you eat?” she asks at some point, and he thinks about lying. Doesn’t want to say that he doesn’t think he can get food down right now. “Let’s stop.”

They end up at a little diner that serves breakfast all day, Isla merrily debating pancake options out loud as Gerri pretends to listen. Her hand comes to rest on Roman’s leg after she folds her plastic menu up, pushes it away.

“You’re awfully quiet,” she sighs, when Isla gets up to go to the bathroom, both of them keeping an eye on the bathroom door. Who’s going in, who’s going out.

“I didn’t know about your birthday,” he says, and it’s the wrong way to start the conversation, a bad foot to lead with, but he’s been thinking about it for hours, no way to hold it in. 

“Everyone has one,” she says dismissively, and he hates that. Hates that she started a conversation she’s going to duck, pretend like he’s being dramatic. 

“I would have been nice to know,” he says. Starts to say something else, something more pointed, but catches himself. Muscle memory leftover from Grace.

Isla comes back and a waitress finally turns up, Isla ordering three different things she’ll barely touch but that Gerri might nibble on, Roman declining in favor of a cup of coffee.

“It’s late,” Gerri tuts, and Roman wonders what they look like to the tired woman taking their order with a shitty fountain pen. A family, maybe, but what kind?

“Is there a pool we can go to?” Isla asks, mouth full of fruit.

“Swallow first,” Gerri tsks. “And yes, there are outdoor ones but they’re closed for the season. Maybe in the spring, alright?”

“I’ll see if there’s a hotel with an indoor one,” Roman allows when Isla pulls a face. “But you’ve gotta go easy on that ankle if we go, your dance teacher said it still needs rest.”

“Is it still bothering you?” Gerri asks. Hands Isla another paper napkin because the one she has is already a greasy, sticky mess. 

Isla only shrugs, which means yes, and Gerri makes a worried sound here. 

“We’re gonna take it easy in the yard, too,” Roman says. “Maybe hang out inside where it’s warm, watch movies with Gerri.”

“And go to the candy store,” Isla adds, her tone a little too pointed and Gerri-ish for Roman’s taste.

“We’ll see,” Gerri allows, which means yes. 

Isla settles easily in her bedroom, happily reunified with Mr. Bugs as Roman pulls the purple sheets and comforter over her, makes room for Gerri to kiss her goodnight after he does.

There’s still a bag left in the car and it has his laptop, so he trudges back out in the cold. Sets up shop on the couch afterward, a million new emails awaiting his attention. 

“You can do that upstairs, can’t you?” Gerri says, standing on the stairs. 

He doesn’t feel like sex and he doesn’t feeling talking, but maybe if he can fall asleep while she’s in the shower, get a good night’s rest, he’ll be up for one of those in the morning. 

_Are you alive?_ Tabitha texts him as he’s powering everything down, and he sends her a thumbs up. Gets a middle finger back. 

He’s halfway asleep, phone in his hand, bedroom lamp still on when Gerri comes out of the bathroom, apparently skipped a shower, washed her face and put her hair up. 

He opens his eyes long enough to watch her take her earrings out. Knows she must be exhausted because she normally does that first, probably forgot until she looked in the mirror. Closes his eyes before she turns out the light, hears the click of the lamp and then feels the shift of the bed, her body settling inches from his, not quite touching. 

He’s almost asleep again when she says, “When Baird was alive, he’d throw these lavish parties for my birthday and I always hated it.” He inhales sharply, rolls over so his legs are pressed against hers, one of her feet immediately sliding between his, her toes warm against his cold ones. “We had a fight about it once. The girls heard it. I thought the parties would stop after that, but the next year, same thing all over again.”

“I’m not Baird,” he sighs. Presses his fingers into the skin above her ribs to take the sting out of his words. “It feels shitty that I didn’t know. Like you were off somewhere and I -“

“I wasn’t,” she whispers. “We were here. It was last Sunday and we were here, and that was all I wanted.”

He tries to hold onto those words, roll them around in his chest before he pushes for more, complains about the things he would have wanted but didn’t get. 

“I think. . . I think I just need you to tell me things,” he says eventually.

“I’m working on it,” she sighs, no ire behind the words. “Give me time.”

He thinks they should probably talk about the Frank stuff, the word that was used, but he can’t stay awake any longer and it’s better to go to sleep now, neither of them angry. 

He wakes up to the sound of the sink running, the room still dark, feels her getting back into bed and then pressing against him. It’s early, not even dawn, but Isla will be up by eight and his dick is wide awake, no matter that the rest of him is mostly asleep. 

She groans when he rubs erection against her ass but it might be a leave-me-alone groan so he stops and waits, doesn’t move again until she pushes back into him, ass pressing against him as he pulls at her nightgown, feels her rolling over to give his hands more access.

He tries to goad her into being on top, but she mumbles various protests at that, ending with, “But I’m an old woman now,” and for that he slaps her ass. 

Neither of them are big fans of morning breath, but he kisses her neck as she wraps her legs around him, making sleepy, happy sounds as he builds a slow rhythm. Eventually she grabs his ass and clucks her tongue to make him speed up. 

“Rome,” she gasps, half laughing when he decides to tease her instead, stops moving his hips entirely. 

“Just making sure you're still awake,” he smirks against her shoulder. Curses when he feels her muscles squeezing his dick. “Fucking cheater.”

“Manipulative, too,” she says, and he thrusts in swiftly for that. Makes her groan even as she laughs. 

. . . 

  
  
  
  
  
  



	13. Chapter 13

The bad press about Kendall explodes after Argestes, pictures and audio leaking out of Ken high off his balls, some of it from the conference and some it from before, shit that outlets have obviously been sitting on, some of it reeking a little of Logan. 

Pierce gets into the act on the second day, runs some high-handed piece about addiction cycles, cites Kendall Roy as a high profile example, and Roman doesn’t know if that’s Nan grinding Noami’s axe or Rhea getting a little revenge for Ken blowing up their deal and her plush job. Either way, Ken just disappears after it goes live, can’t be reached by anyone. 

“Good a time as any to call an emergency Board meeting,” Gerri says in Roman’s office. They need to do it before the proxy vote next week, all of their plotting and scheming coming to fruition now, but Roman’s too worried that his brother’s going to end up at the bottom of the river to think about corporate chess. 

“Can you handle that?” he asks, already hitting up Ken’s usual party buddies, the dealers and the users who don’t already have his number blocked because he use to threaten them, always meant what he said. 

“Roman,” she says, obviously frustrated here, and he looks up from his phone, takes a breath. 

“I want my brother out of the company,” he says plainly. “I don’t want him dead. I’m going to make sure the latter isn’t happening while you put that first one into fucking motion, okay?” 

He asks Frank to pick Isla up from practice, maybe crash at the brownstone if things go poorly. Spends part of his afternoon and his entire night combing the city for his brother, doesn’t have it in him to ask Shiv for help because he’s still so fucking angry at her that the very thought makes him taste bile, thick and bitter in his throat. 

“I’m sorry to call,” he says to Naomi. Gets her number from Tabitha, has her pave the way so Naomi will actually answer his call. “You haven’t heard from Kendall, have you?” 

“No,” she sighs. “Not since he left me some blitzed, angry messages during Argestes. You still can’t find him?” She gives him a list of names and places, haunts she introduced him to, and he’s grateful for the lead. Tells her as much. “I know what you think of me,” she says. “But I honestly fucking cared about him. He sounded really clear headed, back in rehab.” 

“He did,” Roman agrees, feels like crying or punching a wall now. “Thanks again. Sorry to bother you at this hour.” 

He calls Gerri from his work phone because it’s all he has with him. She she doesn’t answer, is no doubt asleep, but she doesn’t call him back. He’s never known her to not return a work call, not at any hour, can’t help but get angry here that she’s doing so now because it’s him, is maybe annoyed that he’s calling her on a Waystar line. 

_Anything?_ Tabitha texts him an hour later, when he’s tired and scared and miserable, still nothing from Gerri. 

_Nope_ , he replies. 

_Where are you?_

She meets him at two o’clock in the morning, her hair pulled back in a messy bun and no makeup, climbs into his car and immediately reads off a string of texts about a house party in Chelsea, a friend of a friend of Naomi’s. 

“Thanks,” he says, after she gives the driver the address. He feels guilty for dragging her out in the cold, making her deal with Roy bullshit. Knows he’s been a shitty, flighty friend who doesn’t deserve this level of loyalty. 

“This is what friends do,” Tabitha says sadly, like she knows she has to explain it to him, and he tells himself he’s not going to cry when she grabs his hand, holds it all the way to fucking Chelsea. 

Ken isn’t at the party, but apparently he was until an hour ago, people saying that he left on his power, which makes the crushing tightness in Roman’s chest loosen, if only a fraction. 

“I have two other parties,” Tabitha yawns, scrolling through her phone. Apparently understands that Roman isn’t going to just roll over, go home and get the two hours of sleep he still can. “The first one isn’t far away.” 

“Okay,” he rubs his face. Wonders if there’s somewhere around here he can get a decent cup of coffee. 

They find Ken two parties later, passed out on someone’s couch, but his breathing is steady and strong, so they get him into the car and take him back to his own home, his motionless body wedged between the two of them when Gerri finally calls, Roman looking at the screen before he lets it ring out. He thinks about the last few hours and what Shiv did in Argestes, how Gerri didn’t seem opposed to it when they talked in her hotel room, feels irrationally angry now. Knows it’s probably at himself and Gerri’s just the easiest target. 

It’s a hassle to get Ken into the elevator and then into his own bed, and the second he’s in it, he pukes all over the place, Roman immediately turning him over, hears Tabitha dash out of the room, probably not as accustomed to human vomit as he is. 

“I have towels,” she announces when she comes back. “How do we clean him up, maybe get him in a different bed?” 

He nods, grimaces a little when some of the vomit gets on his clothes as they move Ken again. One more problem to fucking solve.

His phone rings again when he’s cleaning Ken up, his brother coming to just enough to squirm at the cold, damp towel Roman’s using, making the project even harder.

“It’s Gerri,” Tabitha says softly. 

“I’m a little busy right now,” he sighs. “Can you just. . . fucking talk to her?” 

She takes the call in the other room, the soft murmur of her voice carrying in, though he can’t make out the words, doesn’t really care what’s being said. 

“Do you want her to come here?” Tabitha asks, head poking into the bathroom, phone still pressed to her ear. 

He does, wants to feel Gerri’s hands in his hair, calming him down, reminding him Ken’s safe and sound, but there’s a little voice in the back of his head that says she might make this about Waystar and the Board vote, doesn’t want to deal with that when an hour ago he had to check his brother’s pulse. 

He shakes his head and Tabitha frowns, looking maybe sad or something, but she pushes off the door, says into the phone, “I think we’re okay, but thank you.” 

Naomi sends him a text around six, just checking in, and he calls her back, judges that medium slightly safer. She offers to come and sit with Ken, admits she doesn’t have anything else going on, and maybe it isn’t the best idea but it also isn’t the worst. He really does need to leave, get ready for the day, maybe see his kid for a few minutes before she goes off to school. 

He had Tabitha text Frank a few updates last night but Lydia will have been at the house for half an hour, so he’s surprised when he gets home and Frank’s still there, Roman's favorite mug in his hand as he reads a newspaper, Isla shooting out from the dining table when he walks in the room. 

“Sorry I was gone,” he says into her hair when she hugs him, and he feels like that’s all he says now. Apologies for not being around for meals or bedtimes, all the shit he gets mad at Ken for missing with his own kids. 

“You okay?” Frank asks, when Isla goes to get her shoes on, and Roman just shrugs, feels too hollowed out to speak. “It’s okay for it not to be okay, kiddo.” 

He shrugs again, but then Frank pulls him into a weird hug and before he knows it, he’s crying, face pressed against Frank’s scratchy ass sweater, throat burning. He stays like that for a few minutes, but then he hears Lydia tutting at Isla and he pulls back, wipes frantically at his face.

“I’ll drop her off at school,” he decides. Wants the time with his kid, thinks maybe it will level him out.

“We left Mr. Bugs again,” Isla announces in the car, casual as can be. 

“Are you sure?” Roman frowns here, hand in her hair. He’s almost positive he put Mr. Bugs in the back of the car, can remember it pretty clearly because Gerri was on a work call and he was trying to keep Isla quiet as she squirmed in her seat belt, last few things loaded in around her. 

_Are you still at Ken’s?_ Gerri texts him as they pull up to the school.

_No, school drop off._

“Love you,” he says, hugging Isla again, but she squirms away, has recently decided she’s embarrassed by him hugging her in front of her friends or teachers. 

“Bye,” she calls, zipping through the doors, and Roman just watches her, thinks about when she first started school, would cling to him in the mornings like a life raft in a churning sea. 

_Pick me up on your way in?_ Gerri asks him, and that’s surprising. They don’t ever arrive or leave together, not unless someone else is involved and they’re headed out to drinks or a meal. 

He tells his driver, his driver says twenty minutes, he texts the ETA to Gerri. 

“Did you sleep at all?” she asks, the moment she gets in the car, bag and coffee tumbler in hand. He hesitates before he shakes his head. 

He’s had a shower and a change of clothes, but that’s about it, probably looks like warmed over dog shit. The concern blooms over her face before she glances at the raised privacy partition, reaches out a warm hand to him, cupping his cheek. 

“You might have to prop me up a little today,” he tries to joke, but she just runs her thumb along his jaw, keeps doing so after he closes his eyes. 

He takes a few deep breaths because he doesn’t have it in him to cry again. 

“I have a certain stuffed animal in my possession,” she says, when they’re halfway to work, Roman no longer feeling like he’s about to fly apart at the seams. 

“Did we leave it in the car?” he asks. Gulps down the rest of her coffee, the liquid no longer scalding. 

“Apparently,” she says. “I’m surprised you two didn’t notice.” 

“She didn’t say anything until today and it’s not like I’ve been home for bedtimes,” he reminds her. Feels a little defensive but he doesn’t know why, she hasn’t said anything untoward. 

She goes to take a sip of her coffee but he already finished it, a little frown forming at the corners of her mouth when she finds the tumbler empty. 

“Sorry,” he says, and she pats his leg, doesn’t seem to mind much. 

The no confidence vote is in a few days, no chance Ken gets together by then, and as people pop in and out to tell him things, quietly assure him of their loyalty, he checks in with Naomi, asks if his brother’s conscious yet. 

_He’s talking about rehab again_ , she replies. And he looks down at that message for a minute, relief and pain and guilt churning in his gut. 

_Tell him I said it wasn’t you who leaked the rehab thing._

He’s probably going to regret that text, but soon Ken won’t be a Waystar problem anymore, and he wants his brother to have that comfort, not feel fucking alone in the world. 

“You should eat,” Karolina says, sometime in the afternoon, and Roman realizes here that the last solids he consumed were almost twenty-four hours ago. “Want me to have something brought in?” 

“Maybe,” he says. Doesn’t want her to worry about him, not when she already has so much on her plate. 

It’s late in the day when Stewy has some intermediary get in contact with him, asking for a meeting, and he has his assistant go fetch Gerri. Shoves the message in her face as soon as she rounds his desk. 

“Any chance they’re bailing on the proxy war?” he asks, nervous in a new way. 

“Unlikely,” Gerri breathes out. “But everyone with a brain knows your brother’s on his way out and you’re the most obvious replacement. Maybe Sandy wants to cut his losses, make a deal.” 

“They don’t want anyone else in the room,” he says, scrolling through the previous message. “Just me and them.” 

“That’s a non-starter,” she says immediately. 

“They’re not gonna let you in the room,” he sighs. “Someone else maybe, but not the stone-cold, killer bitch.” 

“Flirt,” she deadpans, obviously running through the five million possibilities of what it is those assholes want. 

“Speaking of which,” he says, schooling his features in case anyone is watching through the glass. “Stay over tonight?” 

“Tempting,” she says after a long beat, sounds conflicted. “But I don’t think us getting careless in the last leg is going to make any of this easier.” 

He knew he wasn’t going to get a yes, wanted to try for one anyway, if only because he doesn’t want to sleep alone after this abysmally shitty day. 

“Yeah,” he breathes out, turning his head. Pushes away the memory of calling her in the middle of the night and not getting an answer, his fingers cold from getting in and out of the car, looking place after place for Kendall. 

“Soon enough, okay?” He doesn’t know if she means a night together or him being CEO, maybe everything being less horrible, though how that last one’s even possible with an ongoing proxy battle, multiple pending lawsuits, and a brother who desperately needs a fucking year in rehab, he doesn’t have any idea. 

“Yeah,” he says again, sits up straighter in his chair. 

. . . 

“Do you just live here now?” Roman tosses out, when he drags home to find Frank on his couch. 

“Well you’re always worrying about Lydia quitting if her hours run too long,” Frank defends. “Though I’m guessing she’s paid about four times market value.”

“Rabbit asleep?” he asks. Hopes it’s one of the nights that she fought bedtime and he’ll be able to see her, but odds of that are slim, the bottom floor quiet.

“She went down half an hour ago,” Frank apologizes. “Let me ready half a chapter, only to kick me out and tell me that Gerri does it better.” 

“Join the fucking club,” he smiles at that, realizes he smells takeout. “Is that Chinese?” 

“Thai,” Frank replies. “There’s some still warm for you, in the oven.” 

“Thanks,” he says softly. Tries to remember if his mother or father ever did that for him, but no, it was always the nannies, maybe a maid or a butler. 

“Heard Naomi’s staying with your brother.” Frank adds, after a pause,“Heard you called her.” 

“I think they cared about each other, under all the bullshit,” Roman shrugs if off. “He shouldn’t have to be alone, and I still have a company to pull out from under his feet. Not like anyone else in the family is gonna babysit him.” 

“I imagine Gerri didn’t love that idea,” Frank says, and Roman realizes that he didn’t actually tell her about Naomi watching Ken. Wants to call that a lapse, just too much shit going on in the day, but isn’t sure that's the truth. 

“Didn’t tell her,” he admits, and Frank’s eyebrows go up in a really fucking annoying way. “Don’t do that.”

“Do what?” 

“That bullshit thing with your eyebrows,” he shoots back. “It was a busy day, I just forgot.” 

“Okay,” Frank allows. 

“No. Really,” Roman defends, isn’t sure why he’s picking a fight over this. 

“Wanna talk about it?” 

Roman does, actually, knows he needs a fucking therapy appointment more than anything. He doesn’t have to think on it to know that processing some of his Gerri shit with Frank would be a mistake, a giant betrayal in Gerri’s book, so he’ll probably just wait, talk to Tabitha about it. 

“It’s hard,” he admits. Doesn’t elaborate beyond that before he goes and shoves some pad thai in his face. 

Frank sits with him while he eats, hands him a beer, and after half his plate is gone, Roman tells him about the Stewy thing. 

“No way that’s anything but a shit sandwich,” Frank pronounces. 

“That’s what I think,” he admits. “Am I wrong to think I should get it over with, quick and dirty meet up?”

“You don’t want to find out about whatever it is at the Board meeting. And I find it hard to believe the timing is a coincidence.” Frank leans back in his chair. “What’s Gerri think?”

“Doesn’t want me to go alone,” he says, spinning his fork.

“Understandable,” Frank says.

“You came at her pretty hard on Saturday,” Roman ventures, watches as Frank grimaces. 

“Sorry about that, kid.” But that isn’t what Roman’s after. 

“Wanna tell me why you were so convinced she was taking advantage of the youngest Roy son?” He pitches his voice for comedic effect but the question is a serious one. Sees Frank sizing him up, can already tell he isn’t going to answer straight out.

“Some ancient history,” Frank hedges. “And maybe my being a little overprotective of you because I never - Roman, I mean this when I say I’ve never watched someone self-correct out of a fucking nosedive the way you did when you got your life together for that kid upstairs.”

It’s hard for Roman to hear those words because he’s pretty sure he’s just locked into a different, parallel set of nosedives now, ones he can’t seem to get out of, no matter how hard he tries. 

“Thanks,” he manages. Clears his throat. “When you say ancient history, do you mean Baird?”

“We’re not gonna talk about that,” Frank says immediately, and Roman’s surprised by the sternness of it. “It was decades ago and I was an asshole to use it against her. And anyway, you’re nothing like Baird.”

He thinks about calling Gerri before he goes to sleep, decides against it because he’s tired and in a dark mood, Frank’s words reverberating in his head as he shoves his pillow under his head. Knows if he picks up the phone he’ll just take it out on her, start a needless fight.

 _Awake?_ he texts her anyway, but she doesn’t answer, is maybe already asleep, and he drops the phone beside him, doesn’t move it to put up on the nightstand. Rolls over in the middle of the night, the phone’s edge jabbing him in the ribs.

. . .

“You okay?” Karolina asks him during their meeting, and he realizes he zoned out, hasn’t heard her last few comments. 

“Yeah,” he says. “Sorry, go on.”

She pauses, sets down the documents she’s holding into her lap, 

“Do you want to talk about the Ken stuff?” she asks gently. 

“No, thank you.” He tries to force a smile, even though though he’s nervous as fuck about his meeting with Sandy and Stewy. 

He set it up for a time that coincides with Isla getting out of a school, fewer questions to answer that way, but he hasn’t told Gerri yet, doesn’t want her to talk him out if it, and he knows keeping her in the dark is shitty, violates the first and only rule they ever agreed on. 

He has three more meetings and two phone calls before he takes off for it, ends up stopping by Gerri’s office on the way out, just kind of ends up there, like his feet have more moral fiber than his brain. 

“Hey,” she smiles, sounds softer than she usually does in the office.

He tries to summon the words to tell her where he’s off to, but instead he hustles her away from the glass wall, backs her into a hidden corner. Presses her into the wall and kisses her so hard, she probably can’t breathe, doesn’t feel her offer up any resistance as his tongue slides into her mouth.

Her fingers bunch in his shirt, and he wraps his arms around her, lifts her up, pins her to the wall in earnest. 

“We can’t here,” she says, pulling her mouth away. Sounds worried now, maybe bothered by the way he’s manhandling her.

“Sorry,” he breathes out, setting her down. Pulling back.

She asks, “Are you alright?” at the same time he blurts, “I love you,” and it’s the wrong way to do it, an out and out fucked up thing to do, but he says it anyway, thinks getting the words out of his body and his head will make him feel better. Maybe. Maybe, it’ll maybe make him feel better. 

“Rome,” she says, eyes a little wide.

“Okay, well,” he says, turning around because that startled expression of hers is nothing he wants to stare at. “See you later.”

She calls him twice when he’s in the car, which means he really freaked her out, but he doesn’t answer, has no idea what to say to explain his behavior besides that he’s had thirty minutes with his kid in the last three days, won’t sleep next to Gerri until Saturday, has been having nightmares that wake him up out of a dead fucking sleep.

The meeting is in a plain enough looking office, the kind of place that was probably an accounting firm or an insurance agency before it went bankrupt, became empty office space for rich assholes to do backroom deals in.

“Long time,” Stewy smiles, standing up from the table Sandy’s still seated behind. “You look good, baby. Changed your hair.”

“Running behind on my haircut,” Roman replies, flopping into a chair. “So what’s up, what is this. You want to snap each other’s necks, spit directly down each other’s throats?”

“So hostile,” Stewy tsks. “Isn’t he hostile?” He pivots to Sandy, then sits down again. “You should really see a therapist about that, maybe process some of that trauma.”

“Listening to your voice is a fucking trauma,” Roman smiles, all teeth and malice. “And I don’t numb my feelings with coke, so you can imagine my present level of pain.”

“Hey man,” Stewy says, “that’s not the attitude to take with a friend who’s doing you a favor.”

“A generous favor,” Sandy adds, and Roman remembers now how much he’s always hated the dickwad. Finally, something he and his father can agree on.

“Your Board is about to have a vote of no confidence in your brother,” Stewy begins. “And presumably you’ll be the new king.”

“There are other options,” Roman hedges. 

“So modest,” Stewy smiles. 

“Gerri Kellman could do it,” Sandy says. “She’d probably be better than you, actually, but there’s a slight problem.”

“You mean systemic misogyny,” Roman drawls. “Or is this where we sing Cyndi Lauper, claim girls just wanna have fun.”

Sandy smirks at that in a particular kind of way, and the pit that’s been growing in Roman’s stomach triples in size, even as he relaxes his hands, makes himself look calm.

“Oh, we think Gerri’s been having lots of fun lately,” Stewy goes on. “But that’s kind of the problem. The Board isn’t going to like that you two are in a sexual relationship, no matter that the gender swapped, May-December thing _is_ kind of sweet.”

If ever there was a time in his life that Roman’s fucked something up, he thinks this is it, because Gerri isn’t here and she’d know exactly how to play this, but he’s an idiot who didn’t loop her in and now maybe they’re both going to pay the price.

He takes a breath, tilts his head in that vaguely disinterested way that Gerri would. Doesn’t offer up any response because this could all be bullshit, something they suspect but can’t actually substantiate. 

“I’ve never been to Rhinebeck,” Sandy says. “Is it nice?”

Stewy hands him a photo of the three of them outside of the candy shop, Gerri’s hand in his, and it was obviously taken with a telephoto lens, not something someone snapped on an iPhone.

“Gerri’s known my family for years,” Roman says. “I don’t know why the kindness of a family friend would be an issue.”

Stewy hands him another photo, this one of him kissing Gerri on a sidewalk, steam rising off the hot chocolate in her hands, and he remembers that exact moment because she still smelled like grapefruit and he thought that so fucking delightful. Forty degrees and his nose freezing off, but Gerri smelling like a summer afternoon. 

“Guess your family treats friends a little differently than mine does,” Sandy says, and Roman wants to jump across the table, smash his fists into Sandy’s skull.

He takes a minute in silence, plays the angles. Maybe they had him followed as a matter of course, maybe someone got suspicious, tipped them off for a fat payday. Either way, it’s the same - Gerri’s out on her ass, probably most of the C-suite, too. But not Roman, since they’ll want him around as a decorative Roy to reassure shareholders, keep him on the Board, pick up a coerced vote.

Fuck that, and fuck them.

“I’m not proud of it,” he says eventually. “Coercing an underling is a bad family habit, I guess.”

“Coercing,” Stewy repeats, sounding like he’s trying to hold in a giggle. “Um, the woman in all these pictures does not look coerced.” 

“Not a line that’ll play well in the post-Me-Too era,” Roman says flippantly. “Especially when her boss is a billionaire, namesake of the company. Willing to admit coercing her in his letter of resignation.”

“Wait a minute, wait a minute,” Stewy says, outright laughing at him now. “Your defense against the revelation of an ongoing, consensual relationship with your Chief Counsel is that -“ He breaks, momentarily giggling too hard to continue, “- is that you it was actually sexual harassment?”

“If you fire her after I resign, that‘s miles of bad press, maybe a lawsuit,” Roman says, tries to sound painfully fucking bored. “And unfortunately most of the C-suite witnessed my inappropriate advances to Ms. Kellman. Cyd Peach, Karolina Navotney. Frank Vernon too, but my brother already did you the favor of drop kicking him out of a moving car.” He reaches over for the water that’s in front of him, sips it for the first time. “You can get rid of me, grab the brass ring, but as for firing anyone else. . .” He waggles his eyebrows. “Could make for some really funky chowder.”

“Wow,” Stewy says. Looks over at Sandy. “Wow. That is _love_.”

Roman feels himself flinch at the word, forces himself to drink his water again, leg itching to shake against his chair. 

“We’ll need your seat on the Board,” Sandy says.

“Obviously,” Roman rolls his eyes. “I nominally keep it, you appoint my proxy. Someone with your hand so far up their ass, you can tickle their tonsils.”

“Yes,” Sandy says simply. 

“Well,” Stewy says, “this has been delightful. I mean truly, bro, you were full of so many fun surprises.” Roman stands up here, grimacing. “But I’m sure our future minions are missing your genius leadership, so we’ll let you get back to your workday now.” 

None of them shake hands, it isn’t that kind of meeting, and in the car Roman cancels the rest of his day, goes home to Isla, lets Lydia leave early. Ignores all the calls from the office, including Gerri’s. Doesn’t know what to say to anyone yet, is pretty sure Sandy and Stewy will be in touch again by morning. 

“Wanna watch a movie?” he asks Isla, and she tugs him by the hand, drags him into the family room and makes them a nest out of pillows before cueing up one of her favorites. 

He ordered dinner only twenty minutes earlier, so he’s surprised when there’s a knock at the door. He should have been prepared for Gerri to turn up, but somehow he didn’t anticipate this very predictable event, feels flat-footed and scared as he lets her in. 

“I’ve been calling you,” she says. “Is Kendall alright?”

“He’s fine.” He actually hasn’t checked on him in hours, assumes there’s no change, but who knows, maybe he and Naomi are off doing speedballs together. 

“What’s going on?” she demands, and he can’t tell if she’s angry or frightened, maybe a mix of both, and something about that sends the words tumbling loose from his mouth. A giant, rambling info dump that leaves him breathless, Gerri staring at him with a stricken face and a clenched jaw.

“Gerri?” Isla appears in the hall.

“Go upstairs,” Gerri orders.

“But you just got here and we’re-“

“Isla,” Gerri says, snapping her fingers in the direction of the staircase. “Upstairs, now.”

Isla takes off after that, dark eyes bright with tears, and Roman bristles here because he’s the idiot, not his kid.

“Careful,” he warns Gerri.

“So let me get this straight,” she says, and every syllable out of her mouth is vibrating with such anger and fucking derision, he can’t even meet her eyes. “Your solution to that very complicated problem was to Me Too _yourself._ ”

“But they can’t touch you now,” he rushes to say, voice pleading. 

“Of course they can,” she says, face so incredibly pale now, like all the color has bled away. “Are you seven-years old? Have you forgotten how this all works? They won’t let you resign that way, it would only hurt the brand, the most you can do is shop the story on backchannels, and by the way, please don’t because that it’s a fucking stupid idea.”

“I was trying to protect everyone,” he says helplessly.

“By parachuting out of the job you never wanted?” Gerri accuses. “How very convenient, Roman.”

“That’s not fair,” he argues, and her jaw tightens again. 

“Telling someone you love them because you’re about to do a thing behind their back is also unfair,” she charges, and he hates that she understands him so incredibly well.

“Gerri,” he says, moving to reach for her, but she flinches at his touch, pulls back and away. 

He wants to say that he does love her, that saying that wasn’t some fucking maneuver, but it feels wrong to say it like this and he knows better. Knew better earlier today, too.

“I should leave,” she says, face expressionless now.

“Stay,” he says. Hates that he sounds like he’s begging, but he is and he’ll beg more openly than this. “Please, stay.”

“How did you think this ends?” she asks him here, sounds more puzzled than angry. “You claim you coerced me, both of us get tarred and feathered, and somehow we still ride off into the sunset together?” 

It’s a punch to gut, the words but also how detached she sounds, and when she leaves, she doesn’t look back. 

. . .

Sandy sends him his marching orders regarding the Board the next morning, along with the letter of resignation they’ve written for him.There’s no mention of impropriety, just a bland statement about needing time with his daughter and a break from the harsh spotlight forever shone on his family. 

Karolina could have done three times better with the same sentiment and the thought makes him smile when he meets with her about something else. Watches the way she gestures with her chin in the specific motion she has, never really noticed it much until he spotted that her son does the same. 

“Hey,” he says when she goes to leave. “I don’t say it enough but we’re incredibly lucky to have you. Always a fucking superstar, never led us astray.”

“I don’t know about never,” she says, but she sounds worried now. “You sure you’re alright?”

“Fine,” he says, tries to sell it with a smile, tap into the affection he genuinely feels for her.

He has box tickets to the Mets messengered to Eva’s home, no note attached. Drafts up messages to Jess and some of the other assistants that he’ll send out when his resignation goes live, offer to find them safe spots to land outside of Waystar if that’s what they want. Cyd will probably rage quit because she’s always loathed Stewy, but he’ll wait to reach out, doesn’t want to sway her one or the other. 

Gerri avoids him all day, won’t answer either of her phones, but he keeps himself busy with shareholders calls and selling a new pack of lies, sends Stewy a nose count at the end of the day. 

The house is quiet when he gets home, Isla at dance for another hour. He’ll leave to pick her up after he showers and changes, maybe pours himself a drink.

 _Are you alive?_ Tabitha texts him, a frequent refrain, and he doesn’t know what to say. Wants to ask if someone can still be alive after they get their heart ripped out repeatedly. 

_Dinner at the house tomorrow?_ he texts instead. Frank left today for a couple days in Chicago and he thinks he’ll need the extra company. Doesn’t want to give his kid a complex by smothering her out of his lonely desperation, the way he did right after Grace died.

 _Of course_ , she says. _I have a funny story for you._

 _I do love a funny story,_ he types back. Trudges up the stairs and starts his shower, thinks he hears a ringing, but then he pauses on the second stair from the top, only hears silence. 

. . .

Ken’s in the office when Roman’s resignation goes live, which is unfortunate, but it’s clear he knew it was coming, maybe had his own little meet and greet with Stewy and Sandy.

Karolina’s the first one in his office and she has tears in her eyes, looks pretty gobsmacked by it all, which is probably a first. 

“I expect you guys for dinner,” he says and she quickly nods. Seems to debate it before she hugs him, hands pressed into his back.

“Sorry,” Gerri clears her throat just outside his door, and Roman tries not to look at her. He had a missed call from her last night, only she didn’t answer when he called her back. Placed another call to her an hour later and that time it went directly to voicemail after two rings.

“Oh,” Karolina says, pulling back. “I have a conference call in a minute.”

He gives her a weird little salute as she heads out the door, Gerri waiting for her but studiously avoiding eye contact. 

“Yo,” he knocks on Ken’s door a few hours later, after a parade of people and calls, the last one a pretty unpleasant one with Cyd. 

“Yo,” Ken echoes. Sounds as bad off as Roman feels. 

“You wanna blow this popsicle stand?” 

“It’s only two o’clock,” Kendall says, which makes Roman crack up, Ken looking aggrieved before that melts away, a half smile on his face. “Yeah, okay.” He stands up from his desk. “What can they do, fire us?” 

“Exactly,” Roman breezes. Waits for Ken to pack up some of his shit, will probably have the assistants deal with the rest of it. “You wanna pick up Isla with me?”

“Can I?” Ken asks, sounding stunned.

“Don’t fall into a pile of coke on the way and we’ll be fine.”

“Uh, fuck you,” Ken says. “None of the good rehabs will take me because of the shit you and Shiv pulled. I’ll have to slum it with the next stint.”

“Sorry,” Roman says. Doesn’t know how much ground he needs the word to cover. Knows it isn’t nearly enough.

They catch a few stares on their way out, the two of them walking shoulder to shoulder, and Roman wonders what Gerri will think about that when she finds out. Knows, in the dark part of his head, that she’ll probably hate it.

“Wow,” Roman says, leaning against the wall of the elevator once the doors slide closed. “We really blew that up, didn’t we?”

“We sure fuckin’ did,” Kendall shakes his head.They’re both sniggering a little, but then the elevator stops and people get on, the two of them separated by a small crowd of bodies, people who still have jobs and significant others and probably halfway healthy relationships with their parents, and Roman feels flattened, watches his brother’s chin wobble before he pulls it together again, takes a deep breath. 

“Your niece won’t let me hug her in front of people,” Roman announces when they walk out, into the lobby. “She’s decided it’s not fucking cool.”

“I have no idea what Sophie and Iverson think is uncool,” Kendall admits, their twinned footfalls echoing on the marble. 

“We should fix that,” Roman says, like it’s easy, as simple as righting a tie that’s askew. 

“Yeah,” Ken says. “Yeah.”

. . .

Between the Waystar dynasty change and the Kendall rumors, the press is as bad and intrusive as it's ever been, and for the first time Roman regrets buying a brownstone, no doorman conveniently stationed at the front of an imposing lobby. 

“This is ridiculous,” Frank complains when he swoops in for dinner, fighting through the press, wet shoes tracking footprints all over Roman’s floor. “This is no way to live, kiddo.”

“Isla’s school is starting to make aggrieved fucking noises,” Roman complains. “I might have to pull her out if this keeps up. Get her some private tutors until shit calms down.”

“Well that’s just bullshit,” Frank says with an exaggerated wave of his hand. 

It’s been a couple weeks and he hasn’t heard from anyone at Waystar, not even Karolina of Eva, and it’s hard not to be gutted by that. Harder still to keep standing when he called Gerri’s burner phone to find the number disconnected, Mr. Bugs dropped off at his doorstep by a courier the next day, no note attached. Just the plainly and painfully delivered message of the action. 

“Maybe we’ll head out to see her grandparents for a few weeks,” Roman says, not for the first time. There’s a ninety-day rehab program just outside of Ojai, and Kendall could do that, bribe the staff to stay quiet. He’s off the wagon again, doesn’t want to talk about rehab right now, but it’s an idea for when he comes around again. 

Ojai is boring and people are mostly annoying, but Roman gets a house not far from Grace’s parents, afternoons spent watching Isla ride horses and swim, sometimes playing with a few of the neighborhood kids.

“Can you send it to Gerri?” Isla says, after he videos her making a jump on a horse for the first time. He only nods, doesn’t know how to explain it anymore, feels something constricting around his throat every time he goes to say the words.

Christmas in California is odd, the weather too warm, the sky too clear and sunny, but Kendall came out, started his rehab program after a bad night, a close call. He’s bright eyed and sober on Christmas Eve, Shiv calling them just before dinner, all of them out on the deck of the house, the fire pit going and the stars out, Isla’s grandparents fussing over her in the background, Roman perched on the wooden railing, a mug in his hand. 

Most morning he wakes up and he knows where he is, sometimes sleeps with the window cracked so the smell of cottonwoods will be the first thing to hit him. Tries to spare himself that initial, dazed moment of rolling over, hoping to find someone next to him. He misses New York, misses the sounds and smells, the way people are always a little bit angry, but there’s no press stalking his family here, he doesn’t panic when Isla takes off from his side like, diving into a heated pool teeming with people, and most nights, he falls asleep just fine.

They’ve been in Ojai for two months when he gets a call from a New York number that he doesn’t know, almost answers it because only about six people have his number now, but he’s tired and it’s bedtime, and anyway it’s probably just a misdial. 

He’s almost asleep when the phone pings with a text, and he squints at the screen, reads the message with bleary eyes.

_Roman, it’s Gerri._

He stares at the words like they might change, a trick of his mind, but they don’t, and eventually he puts the phone back on the nightstand and goes to sleep. Wakes up knowing exactly where he is and that there’s no one bedside him. 

. . .

  
  
  
  



End file.
